


Book Three: Disaster Boys

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: wolf!verse [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Yellowcard (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Bullying, College, Gen, High School, Homophobic Slurs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Werewolves, family stuff, maybe more than 'mention' there'll be warnings don't worry, pete wentz is a fairy, school fights, self harm mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5006782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three letters stood out at him from his locker.  If there was something that could sum up the rest of his school year-- nay, the rest of his high school career-- it was those letters.  Three dark metal characters under a scratched off layer of red paint, too big to be missed, pointing an accusing finger and making his blood turn cold. </p><p>F</p><p>Where did they even come from?  Bullies from before had never gone farther than to shove him into walls or dump his backpack out on the floor.  Maybe this was what he had to look forward to now.</p><p>A</p><p>There it was in bold letters.  Someone had put effort into this.  Finding his locker.  Carving the letters in.  Making sure everyone saw.</p><p>G</p><p>And oh, did everyone see. They were seeing a whole lot more than just his locker that was for sure. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but the vandalism was still a shock.  He grabbed his math book and slammed the locker shut again, staring at the accusation in front of him.</p><p>F- A- God… What was he going to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calm Before the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This book is gonna be Brendon centric, but worry not. Spencer, Jon, and Ryan are floating about too. They'll have their own shit from time to time. Brand new editor. Give it up for kcracken and check out their ao3!! :) (also, ran out of panic! lyrics, so we're switching to fall out boy for chapter titles oh well)

Three letters stood out at him from his locker.If there was something that could sum up the rest of his school year-- nay, the rest of his high school career-- it was those letters.Three dark metal characters under a scratched off layer of red paint, too big to be missed, pointing an accusing finger and making his blood turn cold. 

 

**F**

 

Where did they even come from?Bullies from before had never gone farther than to shove him into walls or dump his backpack out on the floor.Maybe this was what he had to look forward to now.

 

**A**

 

There it was in bold letters.Someone had put effort into this.Finding his locker.Carving the letters in.Making sure everyone saw.

 

**G**

 

And oh, did everyone see. They were seeing a whole lot more than just his locker that was for sure. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but the vandalism was still a shock.He grabbed his math book and slammed the locker shut again, staring at the accusation in front of him.

 

F- A- God… What was he going to do?

 

 

…

 

Brendon would have liked to say that there was a defining moment, the flash of someone’s camera phone or a yell or a shove that set everything in action, but there wasn’t. Everything had seemed perfect actually.Brendon was content.He was floating on air, giddy almost to a fault, and probably driving everyone crazy. 

 

Under normal circumstances the amount of sleep he got Sunday night would have left him dead on his feet come Monday morning, but Brendon’s head didn’t make sense these days.He was wide awake.

 

He had Ryan to accompany him on his walk to school, which was awesome.Ryan had gone in with Zack the previous Friday so that he could take placement tests and get situated as a new student.That was one of Zack’s rules for being in the pack-- finish high school.The school had a placement system for when student transcripts weren’t available or something, and Ryan had tested into all junior classes.He seemed pretty pleased with himself.

 

He didn’t seem pleased that Monday morning though.Brendon was awake nearly an hour before he had to be, and when he rolled out of bed to get dressed and ready for the day, Ryan had groaned and thrown a pillow at him from his own bed which now occupied Brendon’s room. _Their_ room.Brendon had missed having a roommate, even if his roommate was cranky all the time.That was fine, whatever.He could deal with cranky.Valerie had always been cranky, too. 

 

Spencer was up early so Brendon spent the hour trying to talk him into letting him have coffee, and once Ryan was up and functional they set off for school together.

 

It wasn’t as cold out that morning as it could have been, so Brendon unzipped the top of his coat and enjoyed it.He’d tried to start a snowball fight with Ryan, but the older boy hadn’t seemed too keen on that idea.He’d glared and said, “Don’t you dare,” so Brendon didn’t.  

 

When they got to the front door of the school, Brendon opened his mouth to say goodbye, but Ryan was already walking away to the junior hall.That was okay.Brendon shrugged it off and headed to his own hallway, trying to remember if his gym clothes needed to be taken home that night or not.They probably did, but he most likely wasn’t going to take them home anyway.He always managed to forget.

 

In retrospect, maybe the defining moment was when he saw Sarah’s face.That was a pretty big give away that something was wrong.Besides the obvious frown and upset eyebrows, Sarah smelled upset… guilty even, though Brendon didn’t have the slightest idea why.He made his way over to her, tugging off his coat and hat so he could stuff them into his locker, which Sarah was currently leaning against.  

 

“Hey,” he said.Sarah gave him the smallest of smiles but didn’t say anything.Brendon frowned and rocked on his heels a bit since he couldn’t get in his locker, but he couldn’t just _stand still_.“What is it?” he asked.“What’s wrong?”

 

Whatever it was, Sarah was hesitant to say it out loud.It was making Brendon kind of nervous.He bit at the inside of his cheek and scratched his stomach through his shirt.“Sarah?”

 

“Did you, uhm… check your school email this morning?” she asked slowly.Brendon frowned more.His phone didn’t have internet access, because he was lucky enough to have a phone and felt guilty that Zack was paying for it since his parents cut him off their plan after they kicked him out.He wasn’t going to _push_.Spencer had been using his laptop for some homework thing that morning, so he hadn’t been online, like, all weekend.

 

“No,” he said.“Why, what is it?Do we have some kind of surprise test or something?” 

 

Sarah sighed and shook her head.She pulled her own phone out, which was totally cool and like the newest iPhone or something, and handed it over without a word.Brendon raised an eyebrow, because she was acting seriously _weird_.He looked at the screen and-- oh.

 

Brendon’s mouth fell open.“Where did you get this?” he demanded, staring at the screen.  

 

She cringed and covered her eyes with her hand.“Scroll down.It gets worse.” 

 

Brendon swallowed hard, kind of scared of how this could get any worse.He bit at his bottom lip and hesitantly slid the screen down, and that…. That was Brendon’s dick.

 

“Oh my God…” he whispered in total shock, because that was his _dick_ on Sarah’s phone.Not only that, but that was him and Shane from Friday night and that was them kissing and that was Brendon’s hand on Shane’s chest and there were like five pictures and his _dick_ was in the last one.“Sarah, where the _fuck_ did you get this?” he demanded, trying to piece together some kind of story that made sense.She’d been spying on them and took the pictures herself?But no, why would she do that?They were opened up in her email.Someone else had taken them and sent them to her, but…. Who the fuck would do that?  

 

“Someone sent them to the whole school…” she said slowly, twisting her hands together and not looking up.“Jenny called me this morning and told me to check my email, and Linda, and a bunch of other people…. Shane got it, too.He’s not coming to school today.”

 

Brendon’s hands were shaking a bit and he felt like he was going to throw up.“The whole school saw these?” he asked.God, he couldn’t look at it anymore.He shoved the phone back at Sarah and started to pace a bit.“The whole school saw my dick….”

 

“The whole school saw you _kissing a boy_ , Brendon,” she said, pinning him down with a hard expression. 

 

“Fucking _shit_ ,” he groaned, punctuating it with a kick to a nearby locker.He ignored the teacher down the hall who told him to settle down, to watch his mouth.This was no time to worry about that.There were bigger things to worry about.His _dick_ had been emailed to the whole school.Worse, a picture of _him making out with Shane_ had been emailed to the whole school.People had only had suspicions before, but this was it.This was undisputable evidence that Brendon was a flaming homosexual, and he was going to get his ass kicked for it.  

 

“You’re sure it’s the whole school?” he asked her.The hallways were starting to fill up with class approaching, and there were definitely people staring at him.And whispering.If Brendon focused his hearing he could hear every conversation, every word, all hushed but not secret, and it was deafening.He put his hands over his ears.

 

Brendon felt like he was going to shake apart into a million pieces.Someone shoved at his back.It was one of the boys, Joey or something, from his gym class, and he said something that Brendon couldn’t hear over the roaring of his own ears.Sarah said something too.It sounded like she was yelling, and then her hand was around Brendon’s arm and she was pulling him down the hallway.Something hit him in the back of the head.

 

She was gripping his forearm tight, and it normally would have hurt, but Brendon hadn’t done that since before Friday.He’d been feeling _good_.God damn it why did bad stuff always happen when he was feeling good?Was he not allowed to feel good?Was this some kind of punishment?His skin itched.  

 

Sarah pulled him into the main office and didn’t let go, exchanging the grip on his arm for a grip on his hand, and Brendon remembered just a few months ago when they’d held hands everywhere and barely anyone accused him of being gay.Now there was no denying anything.Her hand was sweaty. 

 

“We need to speak to the guidance counselor,” she said.Brendon had spent quite a lot of time with Sarah, so he knew how she could sound when she was being bossy, but he’d never heard her sound that way to an adult.  

 

The secretary looked a bit jolted, but also suspicious.She frowned at them before getting up and crossing the room to another door, one decorated with colorful bubble letters all over it spelling out words like ‘confidence’ and ‘success’ and ‘perseverance’ and ‘vision.’

 

They didn’t go into the office.Instead the guidance counselor, Mr. Wright, came out and stood across the counter from them.He had his arms crossed, but his face didn’t look mean.Brendon refused to let go of Sarah’s hand.Sarah was more than willing to explain (quite angrily) what was going on, and she started by opening the email and thrusting her phone out at the adult.  

 

Somewhere in her rant she said something like, “He is fourteen.This is _child pornography_ ,” and Brendon wanted to die right there.His face was burning.  

 

He didn’t pay attention to the entire conversation because he couldn’t.His mind was all over the place, but also kind of foggy.He kind of felt like curling up on the floor right there.He kind of felt like going outside and getting hit by a bus.  

 

He tuned back in to hear the words, “We don’t want to stir up any trouble,” from Mr. Wright.“It would be a huge process trying to figure out who sent these and then figuring out what to do about it.How about we forget about this and try not to get ourselves into this kind of position again.”

 

He gave Brendon a look with that, a convicting eyebrow raise.A thin, grey eyebrow on reddened skin that made Brendon’s eyes sting.He looked down.Mr. Wright was, well… right.This was all Brendon’s fault.He shouldn’t have been messing around with Shane, not when Shane had been drunk at the party, and that was probably the only reason he’d given Brendon the time of day anyway.He’d messed around with Shane, and he’d forgotten to lock the door.Now Shane was out of the closet and Brendon was… God, Brendon’s life was over.  

 

Sarah was going to argue more, he could tell.She was a firecracker like that, but Mr. Wright wasn’t going to help them.He was right.Brendon had done this to himself.He squeezed Sarah’s hand to get her attention.

 

“It’s fine, Sarah.Don’t worry about it,” he murmured.

 

Mr. Wright nodded, approving.“You have class to get to.I’ll write you a pass.”

 

…

 

 

 

School was, as to be expected, horrible.By the end of the day he’d been shoved, kicked, and had things thrown at him.More people had talked to him than had ever in his entire life, and almost all of them were calling him a faggot or a queer or a pussy or a fairy.He’d skipped gym class that morning because he was honestly too scared to go in the locker room.Sarah had joined him in the library to eat lunch.

 

“Want to hang out after school?” Sarah asked tiredly.They’d met at their lockers and had run outside to meet behind the school where the dumpsters were, where hopefully they wouldn’t be bothered for a few minutes.

 

As great as Sarah was, and as much as Brendon loved hanging out with her (because he really did.She was like his _best friend_ and she’d been putting up with people’s shit all day because ‘hey Sarah, you hang out with _Brendon_ right???’), he was exhausted and really just wanted to go curl up and die.He wasn’t going to be any fun to hang out with.  

 

“Maybe tomorrow?” he suggested.She nodded, not looking terribly disappointed.She smelled kind of exhausted, too.  

 

“Hang in there,” she said, darting in and hugging him tight.It was cold outside, but she was really warm.He hugged her back, trying to breathe and not do anything embarrassing like cry or whatever. They broke apart after a while, and she kissed his cheek before turning and waving and walking through the field behind the school towards home.Brendon waved back, and once she was a good distance away he turned and ran all the way back to the apartment.

 

 

 

…

 

Ryan had worse roommates.He’d shared a twin sized mattress with his friend Lucas during countless sleepovers and found himself on the floor every time.Lucas was a kicker and a blanket hog and Ryan slept too light to put up with that.He’d shared a space of dirt with Jared in New Orleans, and Jared had gotten pissed at him a lot and never wanted to make conversation.The people in public homes always smelt bad, and once a kid not much older than himself had punched Ryan in the middle of the night and stole his shoes.  

 

Brendon, in comparison, wasn’t bad at all.He was kind of annoying, sure, but this was better than sleeping in the snow.Back then he would have killed for company, but now he had just a bit too much of it.

 

The thing was, Ryan’s new roommate never stopped talking, or moving, or making some kind of noise, and it was a bit unnerving.Ryan just wanted to read or nap or listen to music on the iPod he’d somehow managed to hold onto all these months and had finally had the opportunity to charge (that might have been the thing he’d missed more than anything during all those months).But no.Every time he tried, the little shit would burst into the room like a hurricane and say, “Hey Ryan!Guess what-” or “Did you know-” or “You’ll never believe what Spencer saw-.”Sometimes he’d pull an old acoustic guitar out from under his bed and mess around with that, putting on slightly off-key personal concerts that Ryan pretended to ignore.Most of the time, Ryan had to restrain himself from smothering the kid with a pillow. 

 

This was routine, though.Ryan had been officially living with the pack for two weeks now, and he’d been bunking with Brendon for almost that entire time.He had to remember to turn in that job application.He wanted to save up enough money to pay Zack back for the bed and the clothes without holes in them and, well, basically everything.He knew that it had been a small fortune, but every time he mentioned it, Zack just waved him off.Too bad.He’d pay him back eventually. 

 

He’d decided that while walking back to the apartment, which was his only really peaceful time throughout the day.Ryan and Brendon didn’t walk home from school together.Brendon had friends to hang out with or something, and Ryan had his iPod to turn up too loud and keep him company.He always got there before Brendon, so he was startled that Monday afternoon to walk into his room and see Brendon already lying on his bed.

 

The room felt… sad, however that worked.Jon had tried explaining it, but Ryan still wasn’t used to all this wolf stuff, even if he wasn’t outwardly rejecting it anymore.He rubbed at his nose as he crossed the room and tossed his bag down at the foot of his bed.He was waiting for Brendon to say something, and when no words came he felt confused.Brendon’s gaze didn’t shift from the ceiling.

 

“What’s with you?” Ryan asked after a few more minutes of silence.He pulled some of his books out of his bag and set them on the bed with the intention of doing homework.It was pretty early in the semester, but he still had a lot to catch up on. 

 

Brendon didn’t reply, and his gaze didn’t move from the ceiling.He didn’t even move to shrug or anything.Ryan frowned and threw a pillow at him.“Dude.”The pillow smacked into Brendon’s side and then flopped to the floor.

 

“What?” Brendon said, voice monotone and body unmoving.

 

“You’re acting weird,” Ryan told him.The words felt dumb as they left his lips.For one, he barely knew this kid.How did he know for sure what ‘weird’ was?Also, he was finally being silent, and now Ryan was asking him why.He was looking a gift horse in the mouth, as his mom would say, asking for a gift receipt on a blessing. 

 

Ryan sniffed the air and caught something that smelt like metal.He sniffed again and then sniffed himself, just to be safe.He sniffed at his textbooks, and when that didn’t reveal anything, he sniffed as subtly as he could in Brendon’s direction.

 

“Why does it smell like blood in here?” he asked.He was trying to use his wolf stuff more often, even though part of him was still convinced that he shouldn’t be giving in like this.Giving into temptation.Not fighting the good fight.But Zack and the rest of them all let their wolf-ness show, and they didn’t seem like bad people.Ryan was still sorting through that with his conscious.  

 

“Scraped my knee in gym class,” Brendon told him.

 

“Shouldn’t it be healed by now?” Because really, it should have been.Their bodies were weird like that.

 

“Gym is eighth hour.” Brendon rolled onto his side with his back towards Ryan.Eighth hour.That was plausible enough, and Ryan had no reason to question it.Still, the bad vibes filling up the air were making his nose twitch.He was gonna have to go study outside or open a window or something to let some sharp air in.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Brendon said, but he didn’t sound like it.He sounded kind of choked up.“Yeah, I’m great.”It wasn’t Ryan’s place to push this.They may have been roommates, but they were still practically strangers.If this weird kid didn’t want to tell him what was up, he didn’t have to, and Ryan wouldn’t push at it.He’d just sit back and enjoy the silence.

 

…

 

 

“Hey!You’re Brendon, right?” Some kid with shaggy blonde hair cornered Brendon in the weight room during gym class.Brendon had been hiding out as best as he could, trying to look busy and act like his partner hadn’t abandoned him.That was kind of difficult when no one else was willing to stand within a few feet of him, but so far the gym teacher hadn’t noticed.He was kind of paranoid about the scars that decorated his arm, too. He was trying not to move around too much so nobody would see them, and he realized he should probably be grateful for how fast he healed.Pink scars on his skin were easier to hide than bright red lines. 

 

“Dude?” the kid waved his hand in front of Brendon’s face, causing Brendon to flinch and press his arms tight to his sides just in case.“Brendon Urie, right?”

 

“Yeah…” Brendon eyed the kid suspiciously.He’d been watching his old gym partner, Kenny, who was goofing off with some exercise balls and flirting with a girl in their class.Kenny had been talking about that girl all semester, but Brendon still couldn’t remember her name.

 

“You’re the kid from the pictures,” Blondie said, and Brendon nodded.There was no use denying it.This kid didn’t look particularly mean.He had long, slightly frizzy blonde hair that hung almost to his shoulders and a few zits decorating his forehead.He had braces, which were blue and matched his eyes, and he was about half a foot taller than Brendon and skinny.He didn’t look threatening, but he was also kind of cute, which was threatening enough in itself. 

 

“Took tons of guts, man,” Blondie was telling him.“Making out with a _senior_.Especially one like Shane.His friends are totally badass.It would take a lot of guts to throw yourself at him like that.”

 

Brendon scowled and thought maybe Blondie wasn’t as cute as he’d first appeared.“I didn’t _throw myself at him_ ,” he replied, crossing his arms and squinting up at the kid. 

 

Blondie laughed.“That’s not what Shane’s saying.”Brendon hadn’t even known Shane was back at school.Why hadn’t he seen him yet?That was totally unfair.“I mean, look at the pictures dude.He’s not even touching you.”  

 

Blondie produced a cellphone out of the waistband of his gym shorts and held it under Brendon’s nose.Brendon glanced away.He didn’t need to see the pictures again.He knew exactly what it looked like.Shane’s hands were both braced on the bed behind him, and Brendon was the one leaning in.Brendon was the one pulling his dick out of his pants, and it didn’t matter if Shane had told him to.Nobody would believe that Shane was making up stories.

 

Why the hell was Shane making up stories?

 

“Duck, faggots!” An exercise ball cracked against the wall between Brendon and the blond kid’s heads and they both jumped back.The thing thudded sadly to the ground.The room was laughing, or maybe not the whole room, but it felt like that.

 

“Got a new boyfriend already, Urie?” someone taunted.Blondie grimaced and took an obvious step away from Brendon, and he couldn’t really blame him.That was why Kenny ditched him, too.Better safe than sorry.  

 

The same kid from earlier laughed again.“Catch!” he yelled, and then an exercise ball was hurtling its way towards Brendon.He tried to catch it, but he was a little guy and his coordination wasn’t exactly up to par.The kid laughed when the ball smacked into Brendon’s stomach, causing him to groan and fold over.  

 

“Fuck,” he spit out.

 

“Smear the queer!” someone else yelled, and the room erupted laughing.Gym, at one point, had been Brendon’s favorite class.Brendon looked up and saw Kenny flinch and then turn away.Yeah, that was fine.Brendon didn’t blame him.

 

…

 

 

 

Brendon could tell by the way Spencer was staring that he knew.They were seated across from each other at the kitchen table.Spencer was tapping away at his computer, tie loose and shirt unbuttoned at the top because he had to dress up for his new job, but was always too lazy to change when he got home.He looked weird all dressed up like that, like the rest of him was too young for those clothes, but Spencer seemed to like it.It was weird.  

 

Brendon had thirty Spanish verbs he was supposed to be conjugating, but he couldn’t focus.Not with the way Spencer kept glancing up, concerned, mouth opening like he was going to say something before he shook his head slightly and went back to his typing.There were also a dozen bad thoughts swimming around in his head, like a cloud that was almost too heavy for him to keep his eyes open, and his arm stung like a bitch.He wished it would heal already.He knew that’s why Spencer kept staring at him.

 

“Are you okay?” were the words that finally left Spencer’s mouth.Brendon sighed.“You seem really down today.”

 

“I’m fine,” Brendon said, pushing his textbook away from him and laying his head down on his arms.The hoodie he was wearing was too big and super soft.It felt like a cloud.His head hurt.“I’m just tired, is all.Long day.But I’m fine, honest.”

 

“You’re a shitty liar,” Spencer said.He had a way of sounding mean when he was trying to be nice.Brendon was used to it by now.“You wouldn’t be doing that to yourself if you were fine.”

 

Brendon groaned and hid his face against his arms.“I thought you said we didn’t have to talk about it?”

 

“That’s the problem though.You _never_ talk about it.”

 

“No need to.I’m fine.”

 

Spencer groaned, probably exasperated, but it was for the best.If Spencer got mad at him, then he’d leave him alone and stop asking questions.Brendon deserved to have people mad at him anyways.He messed everything up.He deserved it.A chair scraped across the floor.Spencer was probably going to go somewhere else so he wouldn’t have to be around Brendon.It made sense.Brendon didn’t want to be around himself either.

 

“Come here, stupid.”Spencer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up out of his chair.Brendon went willingly because he wasn’t strong enough to fight it, but he was genuinely surprised when Spencer’s arms wrapped around him.

 

Brendon sighed.“I told you, I’m fine.I don’t need a hug.”

 

“Maybe I need a hug,” Spencer argued.“Shut up.”If anything Spencer hugged him tighter.Brendon’s nose was smushed into Spencer’s shoulder and he was being thoroughly smothered.He sighed again.

 

“Spence….”

 

“It’s okay to not be okay, yknow?Like, you can talk to me about it.You don’t have to hurt yourself.”

 

Brendon felt his eyes start to water and clutched onto Spencer a little bit.It wasn’t his fault.It had been a really shitty day.Spencer didn’t get it though.Hurting himself helped.It made his hands stop shaking.His head calmed down.He deserved it.He couldn’t just _not_ , and he couldn’t talk to Spencer about it.Spencer would think he was a total pussy, or absolutely insane, or he’d tell Zack.  

 

Still… the hug felt nice.Brendon found himself sniffling.

 

“It’s okay,” Spencer said quietly.He may or may not have pressed a kiss to Brendon’s head.He couldn’t be sure.All of his focus was directed towards crying as quietly as possible, because he couldn’t stop now that he’d started, especially with Spencer being so nice to him. 

 

After a sufficient amount of time had passed and Brendon had stopped shaking, Spencer hugged him tight enough to lift him off his feet and shook him around a bit.It startled a laugh out of Brendon. 

 

“There you go,” Spencer said.“You need to laugh more, B.”

 

“Yeah,” Brendon said quietly.He wiped at his eyes.“I’ll work on it.”

 


	2. Butterfly Bandage, But Don't Worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thud thud thud

Every day that week Jon had woken up to find his roommate missing.He wasn’t sure when it happened, but it always did.Spencer just disappeared.This day, however, Jon got lucky.Spencer slipped or dropped something.Jon couldn’t be sure, he was half asleep, but it caused enough noise to startle him awake.Spencer froze, mid cringe and halfway out of their bedroom door. when Jon found his voice.

 

“Hey,” he said.He cleared his throat and sat up on his elbows.“Where are you going?”

 

Spencer relaxed a bit, shifting back to life and adjusted the bag on his shoulder.“The gym,” he replied.

 

Jon nodded.“Can I come?”

 

He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he decided to blame the sleepy state of his brain.He knew Spencer and Zack went to the gym a lot.At first Spencer had only gone when he was being dragged there against his will, but now he was waking up at— Jon squinted at the clock— six-thirty a.m. to go work out on his own.Jon was curious.

 

“Sure,” Spencer said after a beat.“Uhm, yeah, I guess.”

 

“I’ll be ready in five,” Jon told him as he rolled out of bed.Spencer shrugged like he didn’t care, but he probably did.He was always kind of tense about being on time and keeping schedules and keeping things neat.Jon didn’t dawdle.  

 

He slipped into a pair of jeans and a hoodie, went through the necessary tooth paste and deodorant routine, and combed his fingers through his hair.“Alright,” he tossed a pair of basketball shorts at Spencer while he shoved his feet into tennis shoes and slipped his coat on.“Put those in your bag?” he asked.  

 

Spencer bit his lip while he juggled two cups of coffee and the shorts draped over his arm.Jon hadn’t noticed the coffee before.He went over and put the shorts in Spencer’s bag himself.  

 

“Thanks,” Spencer said.“Here.”

 

A travel mug was pushed into Jon’s hands while they headed for the door.“C’mon.”

 

It was silent the whole walk there which was fine.Being around Spencer was comfortable whether they were talking or not, and Jon could sense that Spencer was relaxed, too, albeit kind of sleepy.Jon wasn’t a morning person ever.He rubbed at his eyes and burnt the roof of his mouth on the coffee and followed Spencer down the sidewalk.  

 

It was a twenty minute walk, but the frigid wind blowing through town made it feel longer.By the time they got to the gym, which was already lit up in the early morning, Jon’s ears felt like they were going to fall off.After eighteen years in Chicago, he should have been smart enough to never leave the house without a hat on.  

 

“Hey Tommy.” Spencer raised a hand to a man who was sitting behind a desk in the corner of the room, his legs kicked up and a cap pulled down over his eyes.  

 

“Hey there, tiger.”

 

Spencer rolled his eyes easily, as if that were an exchange that he was simultaneously used to, but also still embarrassed by.Jon didn’t say anything because he was still too tired to formulate words, but he did notice Tommy watching him through the corner of his eye, peeking out under his cap.  

 

He followed Spencer as the puppy made his way to a door near the front of the building.Inside sat two benches and a wall of lockers.“We don’t need a lock,” Spencer said, his voice startling Jon out of alpha brain waves.“This place is always dead this early.”

 

Jon nodded and followed Spencer’s example by shedding his jeans, coat, and sweatshirt and slipping into gym shorts.Spencer changed quickly and didn’t wait, so Jon let himself linger.After Spencer walked out, he stretched his back out and sipped at his coffee. He checked his phone— **6:43**.Too early to be conscious, let alone working out.Brendon and Ryan would be waking up for school in half an hour.  

 

Once Jon finally pushed aside his laziness and shook himself awake, he wandered out into the gym and looked around.Tommy was still at his desk, but now he had an issue of Rolling Stone propped open on his lap.The shuffling sound of movement and a dull ‘thud thud thud’ came from deeper within the room, so he rolled his shoulders and headed that way.

 

He found Spencer at a punching bag.There were a few treadmills nearby which Jon could use, but he was a bit too tired to walk _and_ watch Spencer, and the latter was very important at the moment.He decided to stretch instead.Jon wasn’t really an ‘exercise’ kind of guy.He was a ‘sleep’ kind of guy, an Xbox kind of guy, and apparently a ‘stretching’ kind of guy.He plopped down right there in the open space and reached for his toes, stretching his hamstrings out and keeping his eyes on Spencer, who seemed to be working on punching a hole through the bag.He was consistent with his attacks and soon there was sweat rolling down his temples.Jon’s fingers itched for his camera.He told himself that it wasn’t because he was a creep, but because he was a photographer.Then he decided that he was probably both a creep and a photographer, because having a crush on his eighteen year old _straight_ pack member wasn’t okay.He stretched a bit more and looked down at the floor instead.

 

After a while, once Jon was closer to dozing off than he was to stretching, the rhythmic ‘thud thud thud’ stopped and Spencer collapsed on the floor next to him.Jon yawned and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.Spencer was laying just inches away, back against the cold gym floor, sweating and panting and putting all kinds of obscene images into Jon’s mind.The older boy reached farther and distracted himself with the burn behind his knees.

 

He couldn’t focus for long though.After a short while he glanced back over and realized that Spencer’s canines where protruding and what was usually barely stubble along the puppy’s jaw was fading into fur, a thing that sometimes happened mid-shift.Jon could hear his heart beat rocketing.He smelled tense.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked. Spencer’s eyes shifted to him, first harsh yellow wolf eyes, and then a slightly startled baby blue.

 

“Am I alright?” Spencer asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Jon obviously wasn't going to get the answers he wanted here, so he gave up for the time being.He did get the conversation he was searching for though on the walk home from the gym.He was more awake, but obviously not awake enough to watch his fucking mouth.

 

“It’s hard to believe you killed those guys.” He regretted it the moment those words left him, and the look Spencer had on his face suggested that he was about to kill again (that’s not funny. Jon really shouldn’t joke about it, but he couldn’t help himself).There was no going back now, only forward.“It was impressive.”

 

Spencer scoffed and kicked at a chunk of snow on the sidewalk.It exploded with a ‘puff.’ “It wasn’t _impressive_.I freaked out,” he said.

 

“I couldn’t have done it,” Jon replied.“Even if I had freaked out.I couldn’t be that fast.I’m never that big. And your voice, dude. It was intense.” He wasn’t exactly mature enough to be oblivious to how everything he was saying sounded like an innuendo.Spencer, on the other hand, was either mature enough or just thinking too hard.It was probably the second one.

 

“I’m still not completely in control of myself,” he said.“It’s just… they were _hurting_ them.I didn’t know what else to do.I lost it.”

 

“It’s okay to lose it sometimes,” Jon said, bumping his shoulder into Spencer’s in an attempt to relax him.It didn’t work.

 

“It’s not okay to kill people.”

 

“They probably would have killed Brendon and Ryan.”

 

“There was a better way to handle it….”

 

“It’s too late now.Worry about that next time.”

 

Spencer sighed and kicked at the sidewalk again.This time a block of ice went skittering down the sidewalk and into the road.“I’m not strong enough,” he said under his breath.

 

Jon paused for a beat.Arguing wasn’t getting him anywhere.He watched as their breaths came out in uneven puffs and bumped his shoulder against Spencer’s again.

 

“I used to be bigger than you, y’know?What happened to that puppy I picked up outside the mall?”

 

A grin spread across Spencer’s face.“Jealous?”

 

“Hell yeah.” Jon tugged at Spencer’s ear and earned a shove in return.“Not too much though.You might be bigger now, but you’re totally still a puppy.”

 

“Fuck off,” Spencer said, and then slipped on a patch of ice and almost went down.Jon caught him by the arm, laughing.He set a hand on the back of Spencer’s neck and shook him a tiny bit.  

 

“Such a puppy.”

 

….

 

“You’re such a pussy!”

 

“Fuck off …”  Brendon murmured, not loud enough to be heard.

 

Lunch.That was all he wanted, but no.The universe was not on his side that day.Whatever God existed up there was either laughing or not paying attention.‘Thud.’ That was the sound of Brendon’s lunch hitting the floor.He’d started bringing his lunch when he and Sarah had begun eating in the library.‘Crunch.’ That was someone stepping on it.

 

Better the food than him, Brendon supposed.

 

“Mmmm.” It was Joey, a kid from gym class, the one who’d thrown the exercise balls.Joey was like a brat on the playground and Brendon was his new favorite toy.He smirked at Brendon as he dug his heel into the brown sack on the ground.“Tasty.”

 

A kick launched the mess and it landed with a ‘thump’ at Brendon’s feet.“You gonna eat that?”

 

Deciding how to respond was hard.The feisty, hyper part of his brain wanted to say something sarcastic and throw the lunch in Joey’s face, but the scared part of his brain wanted to run away.The smart part of his brain knew that it was best to play along, but he wasn’t sure what they wanted him to do.He wasn’t going to eat the food. Maybe they wanted him to cry.Maybe they wanted to hit him.

 

“What?Is your mouth full?” one of the boys, Mike or Miles or something, asked.The third mimed a blowjob.Brendon’s cheeks were burning. 

 

“Cocksucker.” His uncle’s voice echoed over the boy’s words.Brendon deserved this.He brought it on himself.

 

“You’ve had worse in your mouth,” Joey taunted.“Eat the fucking food!”

 

Brendon could feel himself shaking his head without thinking about it, and he could also feel Joey’s hands on his shoulders, shoving him back and sending him stumbling over his own feet.His backpack made it impossible to catch his balance and he fell hard.

 

Joey lunged forward and Brendon put his hands up, prepared to get hit or kicked or spat on.Whatever Joey was planning, he didn’t get to do it.Sarah’s voice shouting from down the hall interrupted the whole situation.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She rushed in, filling the small gap between the two parties and getting all up in Joey’s space.“Leave him the fuck alone.”

 

“What are you going to do about it?” Joey sneered.He was pretty tall and had to stoop down a little bit to look Sarah in the eye.She glared right back at him, five feet and six inches of fearless anger radiating and bouncing off the lockers.  

 

“You wanna mess with someone?Mess with me.Go ahead, hit me.I dare you.” Brendon scrambled to his feet and stood awkwardly behind her, unsure of what to do with himself. 

 

“I don’t hit girls.Except for that one.” He nodded his head at Brendon, and Sarah’s only response was to step even closer to Joey, practically nose to nose.

 

There was a stare down.The air was sharp and tense, and Brendon found himself holding his breath.

 

“Fine,” Joey said after a while.“Y’know, Brendon, it’s fucking pathetic that you need this _dyke_ to stand up for you.”

 

Joey turned and stalked down the hall.His friends followed.Sarah picked up the ruined sack lunch and hurled it at their retreating backs.

 

“I’m only a dyke ‘cause I fucked your mom!” she hollered.They ignored her.Of course they did.What were they going to do?They couldn’t hit a girl.

 

Once they were gone, the fear that had been pulsing through Brendon’s veins turned into humiliation, which burned with anxiety so similar to the other emotion that he barely noticed the difference.Still, instead of his knees trembling in fear, his hands were now shaking with anger.

 

“What the hell was that?” he yelled.Sarah turned to him, first surprised and then glaring.“I can take care of myself,” he said.“I don’t need help.You just made everything worse!”

 

The problem with Sarah was that she wasn’t afraid to put you in your place when you deserved it.It didn’t matter who you were, as she’d proven greatly over the past week; guidance counselors and jerks and best friends were all treated the same when they earned it. 

 

“Don’t be a dick,” she said.“As if I’m going to let them beat your ass?Fuck you.”

 

“I would have fought back,” he retaliated. She raised an eyebrow at him, a silent ‘oh really?’ that had Brendon dropping his gaze to the floor and scowling.Fine, whatever.She was right.

 

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened, is it?” she asked him.  

 

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

 

She sighed.Brendon was sick of all the bad energy.In his head, in the air, venting from everyone’s pores and spilling out of their mouths.An insistent little voice in the back of Brendon’s head kept saying ‘this is all your fault,’ and he knew it was true.Everyone would have been a hell of a lot happier without him around.Maybe he should just go throw himself off the roof of the school, or wander off into the mountains to get lost forever.Maybe he could go outside and get hit by a bus.Maybe he should just go home.

 

“I’m going home,” he grumbled, turning around and heading for his locker.Sarah’s hand caught his arm at the crook of the elbow. 

 

“You’re going to class,” she said.“C’mon, don’t make me sit through Spanish alone.That class is full of assholes.”

 

“I’m sorry they dragged you into this,” he said, eyes to the floor because if he looked up he might start crying.

 

“It’s video day.Maybe there’ll be tortilla chips again,” Sarah offered.

 

‘Maybe I’ll choke on a chip and die,’ Brendon thought.

 

For all that Sarah was amazing, she may have also been a mind reader, because as soon as that thought whispered through Brendon’s brain and made his throat feel tight, she stepped in and wrapped her arms around him even tighter.  

 

“Damn it, Brendon…” she murmured.“If people were giving me shit, you’d help me out, right?” she asked, cheek against his ear. He didn’t have the energy to hug back just yet, but he found it in him to nod.Of course he’d help her out.She didn’t deserve people giving her hell.He’d totally try and kick ass for Sarah.

 

“Good,” she said.“Then let me do the same for you, okay?You shouldn’t have to put up with this shit, but since you don’t have a choice, at least let me help you.”

 

Brendon swallowed hard and wrapped his arms around her, letting her squeeze the life out of him and smother him in a hug.He’d grow one day, and then he’d be taller and she wouldn’t be able to do that anymore, but for the time being it was nice.Brendon was kind of a slut for hugs, especially on bad days.  

 

“There’s still five minutes left of lunch,” she said.“I packed two sandwiches.C’mon.” They untangled themselves from the hug, but she took his hand immediately after and intertwined their fingers.He followed her tug down the hallway and through the backdoor of the library, where they hid out in the autobiographies and didn’t talk over peanut butter and jelly.

 

…

 

Pages so thin they were nearly nonexistent under his ink-stained fingertips; that might have been Ryan’s favorite thing about the bible.Not the words themselves, which were controversial at best depending where you looked.No, not the words.Ryan liked how it felt.There were pen markings in his bible dating back to second grade, when Sunday school became more than just coloring pages and songs.He remembered sitting in church with his mother afterwards— the front pew, because his mother always said she felt closest to God there— letting the preacher’s sermon be background noise while he flipped through the pages that were so thin they didn’t make a sound.

 

His mom had always said the pages were ‘thin as fairy’s wings.’ Well, Ryan had met a real life fairy and he hadn’t seen any wings whatsoever.When he’d been younger and his mom had told him scary werewolf stories before bed, he’d been willing to believe that she knew about real life fairies, too.Now that he’d met the real deal and found out that wolves weren’t necessarily what she thought them to be, he was pretty sure that she just hadn’t known what she was talking about.

 

People always believe bull shit when they’re kids, he supposed.

 

If he were younger, he’d probably believe that the howling wind outside was demons tapping at the window.Now that he was older, he knew it was just air, though.Icy, violent air making the windows creak a little bit.Occasional bursts of rain would rap against the glass and disrupt the relative silence in the apartment.It made for good background noise.The next night would have a full moon, and Ryan really hoped the storm cleared up by then.

 

In the living room, Spencer, Jon, and Brendon were watching _American Pie_ which just so happened to be one of Ryan’s favorite movies, but he wasn’t in the mood to hang out with them.He just wanted to be alone, so he’d excused himself and curled up on his new bed, pulling the blanket around him like a nest to keep warm against the weather outside, and opened his bible on his lap.He’d listened to the movie for a good amount of time before actually starting to read.He would have felt guilty if he didn’t.

 

After a while— the movie wasn’t over yet, Ryan could still hear it loud and clear in the living room if he focused— Brendon came shuffling into the room and curled up on his own bed.Ryan said hello with a head nod and went back to reading, but he soon found that he couldn’t focus.There were eyes burning into him.

 

“Uhm,” he said, looking up and raising his eyebrows at the kid just a few feet away.“Can I help you?”

 

“Why are you reading that?” Brendon asked.He sat up and folded his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and settling his chin on his knees.The grey sweatpants he was wearing were rolled at the waist band but still hung long enough to completely cover his feet.They were from gym class or something and they had the name ‘John Urie’ written in Sharpie right over the letters BYU. 

 

“Uhm,” Ryan repeated intelligently, “…just cause….” He was used to having the unpopular opinion when it came to whether or not the bible was something that deserved to be read.All of his friends at home had gone to church with their families on a weekly basis, but none of them really cared.Most teenagers didn’t care about church actually; it wasn’t that odd.But when Lucas or one of the other guys caught him with a pen sticking out of his bible, they’d just roll their eyes and say, ‘That’s just Will.He’s odd like that.’ Brendon didn’t look casually confused.He looked personally insulted.

 

“You know it’s all bull shit, right?” Brendon said abrasively. 

 

Ryan liked to argue when he was in a certain combative mood, but he didn’t have it in him tonight.Instead he just smiled sadly at the kid sitting next to him and said, “Not for me.”

 

That was a bit of a white lie actually.Ryan couldn’t honestly say that he believed everything he read in the bible, or everything they taught at his mom’s church.He didn’t know what to believe anymore.His mom had taught him all of these beliefs, and she’d turned out to be wrong on every other thought.How could he trust this one? 

 

Brendon frowned and looked down, facial expression frustrated like he was having some kind of argument in his head.Ryan didn’t want to know, honestly.Brendon had been acting weird all day.To avoid any further attempts at starting a fight, Ryan leaned down and dug his iPod out from his backpack under the bed.He shoved the headphones in and turned it on shuffle at a low enough volume that it wouldn’t hurt his ears.His senses felt all raw lately, and he had a feeling it had to do with the full moon coming up.He felt all weird, and the sky was a constant blanket of clouds that the moon could just barely be seen shining through. 

 

The full moon made sense though.Maybe that’s why Brendon was being such a dick.He’d ask, but he didn’t want to start a fight.  

 

“Yeah, well.It’s dumb,” Brendon told him.  

 

“Fuck off,” Ryan snapped.He just wanted to be left alone for fuck’s sake.Brendon stared at him steadily for a moment, face blank, and then curled up in bed with his back to Ryan.  

 

“Fine,” Brendon said.

 

“Fine,” Ryan echoed.Once he was sure Brendon wasn’t paying attention, he got up and dropped the bible into his sock drawer.If he read anymore tonight, his head would explode.He just wanted some peace and quiet, but his head was busy and loud with questions he didn’t know how to answer.

 


	3. The Road To Ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's just say that things are picking up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: self harm mention, talk of suicide, bullying mention, lots of negative thoughts.
> 
> also, last announcement of this fashion that I'm going to make. but the powers that be helped me realize that I've made a math error. It doesn't really matter /now/, but it will later, so here's the final information on how old everyone is:
> 
> BOOK 1: Brendon- 14. Ryan Key- 16. Spencer- 17. Jon- 19/20. Zack- adult.  
> BOOK 2: Brendon- 15 (sophomore). Ryan Key- 17. Spencer- 18. Jon- 20/21.  
> BOOK 3: Brendon- 15/16 (still a sophomore). Ryan Key- 17 (junior). Spencer- 18. Jon- 21.   
> BOOK 4: Brendon- 16 (junior). Ryan Key- 17/18 (senior). Spencer- 19. Jon- 21.  
> BOOK 5: TBD 
> 
> There. Gonna go back and REFIX everything, cause I was an idiot and fixed what wasn't broken the first time. what's important here is that Brendon is a sophomore. kapeesh?

“Hurry the fuck up, guys.  I’m going to be late to class,” Spencer complained from the door of the apartment where he was crossing his arms and tapping his foot and just looking downright bitchy.  “Brendon!”

“I’m coming!” Brendon shouted back.  He grabbed his bag off the floor and grumbled his way to the door of the apartment.  He was in an awful mood, and Spencer was being a jerk.  

“Come on,” Spencer said for probably the seventh time.  He grabbed the keys off the hook on the wall and wrenched the door open.  

Ryan, who had been sprawled out with his knees hooked over the arm of the couch, rolled off sideways and tumbled to his feet. “It’s fucking early,” he complained.

It was fucking cold outside.  So cold in fact that Zack decided they really shouldn’t walk to school, lest they catch hypothermia or pneumonia or frostbite.  He had to go into work at an actual normal person time to deal with some kind of club emergency, so he’d handed the car keys over to Spencer and gave Ryan and Brendon both two dollars to catch the bus home after school.  Ryan had tried arguing politely and giving the money back, saying that he could pay for it himself or walk and Zack didn’t have to worry about it.  He should have known better though.  Zack just pushed the money back into his hand and patted him on the head before going out to catch the bus or taxi he was taking to his workplace in the next town over. Ryan’s hair bounced right back up when the blonde spikes got pushed down.  He frowned.

“Would you hurry the fuck up?” Spencer asked, planting a hand in the middle of Brendon’s back and moving him across the parking lot.  “Seriously.”

Ryan fell into the passenger seat of the car and immediately opened a book on his lap.  Brendon crawled into the backseat, letting Spencer slam the door closed behind him and peeked over Ryan’s shoulder at what he was reading.  It was the bible, like always.  Brendon rolled his eyes and sunk back into his seat.

“Seat belts,” Spencer said.  He waited for them both to click theirs in place before he even turned the car on.  He turned the radio on and pulled out of their parking space carefully, and after barely any time passed at all, they were pulling up outside the school.  It was a much shorter drive than it was a walk.  

“Remember,” Spencer called after them, “take the bus after school.  There’s only two lines in this town, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure it out.  Line 2, okay?”

Brendon rolled his eyes and trudged up the steps to the school without answering.  He heard Ryan mumble, “Yeah sure,” and then he was running up the steps to catch up with Brendon, book still open under his nose.  Ryan was still new, so he didn’t know where they were supposed to go if they arrived too early.  They were never early so it hadn’t come up before.  

“Where are we supposed to go before classes?” Ryan asked, bumping his shoulder against Brendon’s.  Brendon flinched away.

“Cafeteria or gym,” he said.  Ryan nodded and instantly headed for the gym, which was on the opposite end of the school from the cafeteria.  Brendon waited a moment and considered his options.  A lot of bad stuff had gone down in the cafeteria, but the gym had basketballs and bleachers and wrestling mats.  The potential for disaster was a lot greater in the gym where roughhousing wasn’t allowed, but also wasn’t monitored.  Since ‘smear the queer’ had become everyone’s favorite game, Brendon was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive the gym without bruises or at least a fair amount of public humiliation.  The last thing he wanted was to get pushed around in front of Ryan, who was in the pack and would either make fun of him, think he was pathetic, or tell everyone else what was going on.  Brendon was pretty sure he couldn’t endure any of those options without throwing up.

Then again, the cafeteria had milk that someone could dump over his head and floors that were always mildly slippery and lunch ladies who watched soap operas instead of watching the lunch room like they were supposed to.  Also Joey and his gang hung out in there.

Outside it was freezing, and inside it was dangerous.  If he stood in the hallway any longer a teacher was going to see him and yell at him, give him detention maybe.  Brendon was trying to stay out of trouble, actually, so he turned on heel and headed towards the gym.

**  
  
**

…

As cold as it was outside, it was somehow ever colder on the bus.  It was drafty and Brendon tugged his hat down over his ears and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.  The bus was just busy enough that Brendon couldn’t let himself shift, not even a little bit, to keep warm.  He pulled his hood up and exhaled hot breath down the front of his jacket.  It didn’t help much.

The bus driver had given Brendon a funny look when he’d climbed on the bus right outside the high school at nine in the morning, but Brendon didn’t care enough to feel guilty or come up with an excuse.  He just pushed his two dollars into the machine and slumped down in the very back, knees propped up against the back of the seat in front of him.  It was so fucking cold.

He wished the cold would get rid of some of the heat throbbing from his eye, but that was not the case.  The initial chill when he’d walked out had been nice, but it didn’t last long.  He should have scooped up some snow for an ice pack.

A pothole in the road jostled the whole bus, and Brendon groaned.  His hip had to be every possible shade of purple from the way he’d landed on it.  He’d been shoved and stumbled and bumped into someone’s legs and looked up and seen Shane and thought ‘thank God.’

He took the hardest hit from Shane though, straight in the chest and knocking the wind from Brendon’s lungs when he’d glared and yelled, “I’m not a fag like you!”  He’d snapped other things, too, and Brendon really should have been used to Shane’s irritated voice because God knows he’d heard it a million times before then.  When Brendon wouldn’t blow him.  When Brendon had tried to hold his hand at the mall.  When Brendon had gotten a little distracted while they made out and kind of just… stopped. This was different though.  There were people watching— a whole hallway of seniors who’d just come in before first hour.  

There had been tears streaking down Brendon’s face and he couldn’t remember if they were from the punches he’d taken in the gut or Shane saying, “It was all a joke, Brendon!  Jesus Christ, are you really so retarded to think that I’d actually like you!?”  He couldn’t tell if the tears on his face now were from that or the cold or his swollen eye.

The last time they’d made out on that Friday when Shane had been drunk and Brendon had been a little desperate, he’d whispered ‘I love you’ against his mouth, and he’d been certain that the noise Shane made had meant ‘I love you, too.’  He’d been wrong, though.  God, he’d been so wrong.  He’d fucked this up just like he’d fucked up everything else and this was all his fault.  

If there was a day to kill himself, Brendon thought, today was the day.  He should have walked in front of the bus instead of gotten on it, but it was too late now.  He was going to be in a lot of trouble for skipping school, too, but it wasn’t like he could have stayed there.  Not when practically the whole school had seen him get his ass kicked and laughed and Shane had said everything he had and….  Brendon prodded gently at his eye as the bus screeched to a stop and a few people climbed on.  Brendon didn’t pay any attention to them.  He picked at his jeans and held his breath to get his eyes to stop watering, and he didn’t notice who was there until they sat down two seats away from him.  

He glanced up at the kid through the corner of his eye and recognized him instantly— bathroom sandwich kid.   He was sitting there with his awesome hair and his awesome clothes and his eyes that were black with eyeliner and not bruises.  Brendon only realized he was staring when the kid looked up at him, eyes narrowing and lip pulling up in a sneer.

“What?” the kid hissed.  

Brendon diverted his gaze down.  Yeah.  Right.  He knew better than to bother strangers.  Why would anyone want to talk to him anyways?

“Nothing,” he said.

The kid was probably still glaring, but he didn’t smell scared (not that Brendon could smell very well the way his nose was all stuffed up).  His heartbeat was going kind of fast, though.  Maybe he was scared.

“What happened to your eye?” the kid asked him after a moment, still glaring a bit, but maybe that was just his natural facial expression.  Brendon shrugged.  He didn’t want to talk about that, but he wanted to talk to the kid about something.  Shane and him were over (hadn’t ever been together, apparently).  He had every right to talk to cute boys.

 

“We go to the same school, right?” Brendon asked and then cringed.  Yeah, they did.  No shit.  That’s basically what the kid’s facial expression was saying too.

“Uhm…” he said.  “Yeah. Duh.”

“Right,” Brendon said and then face palmed. “Uhm,” he tried again.  “Why aren’t you there?”

The boy cocked an eyebrow and raised his chin a little bit.  “Why aren’t you?”

Brendon bit his lip and shrugged, and the kid nodded.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Same thing here.”

“Sorry,” Brendon mumbled.  The boy shrugged again.  There were so many disastrous directions this conversation could take if Brendon let it.  He had a ton of questions— where did this kid get his eyeliner? did he cut his hair himself? why did he always look so mean? was he a sophomore, too? why had he punched Brendon that one time? what was his… well, that last one wasn’t as dangerous as the others.

“What’s your name?” Brendon asked him, picking his head up from his hand and looking sideways at the kid.  

“None of your business,” he said in a monotone that basically shot the conversation dead.  Brendon sighed like a dying man and considered falling off the balcony when he got home. That was if he lived through the front door.  He was in so much trouble.

 

There was a long silence which Brendon normally would have tried to fill up with small talk (He was, like, an expert chit-chatter.  He could talk about nothing for quite a while when he put his mind to it.  It hadn’t exactly helped him make friends before, but there weren’t usually awkward silences when he tried, so there was that), but he just wasn’t feeling up for it that day.  He didn’t have the energy, and his throat felt too tight, and he probably couldn’t take this kid shooting him down again.

The boy spoke up and startled Brendon out of his thoughts. “What’s someone like you doing skipping school anyways?”

“Huh?” he asked dumbly.

“I mean, you look like a goodie-two-shoes,” the boy said.  “No offense.  And someone told me you’re, like, super religious or something.”

Right, of course.  Might as well go and hit all the painful things to think about today.  Why the hell not? Brendon didn’t answer to mean bathroom sandwich kids.  He just shrugged and slouched more in his seat.

The bus slumped to a stop and the kid stood up.  “Well, see ya.”  He made his way to the doors, skinny shoulders pulled tense and that was when Brendon noticed he wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat or well… anything more than a hoodie.  He must have been freezing.  Brendon didn’t think those skin tight jeans could be very warm.  The bus jumped back into action and rumbled its way along, Brendon and some pretty young lady in the front in an iHop uniform being the only passengers.  He closed his eyes and sighed, his breath coming out in a white puff.  

…

He was on the bus long enough to hit the ‘end of the line’ turnaround three times.  To be fair, their town wasn’t too big.  The bus would make its way slowly through, buzzing on past desolate bus stops and  occasionally coming to a shuddering halt to let in a straggler.  At the edge of town, where the forest won over in the building to tree ratio and a state highway stretched its way to the next town over, you could hop on a different bus and hitch a ride to better places: a mall in a town with 30,000 rather than a small town of 10,000 at most that just a year or two ago got its first Starbucks.

They hit the end of the line, and the bus driver turned in his seat to look at Brendon.  “End of the line, kid,” he’d said.  “From here we just turn around and go back.”

Brendon was in enough trouble as it was without taking an impromptu trip to the mall.  Also, he’d spent his two dollars for this bus and wouldn’t have anything for the other one.  He bit his lip.

“Can I stay?”

The guy shrugged and turned the bus around to head into town again.  Brendon slumped in his seat and wished he hadn’t left his earbuds at home that morning.  The second time they’d hit that turn around, the guy hadn’t said anything.  He’d just looked at Brendon and raised an eyebrow and kept driving after Brendon had shrugged and looked down at his lap.  Shrugging hurt.  His bruised muscles felt tight and sore as they worked at healing themselves.  His eye was throbbing a bit less though.  

At the third turn around the guy spoke again. “What street you live on?” he’d asked.  Brendon didn’t want to answer-- he really didn’t-- but he was raised to be polite to adults, and this guy had been nice to him so far.  

“Harmon,” he called to the front of the bus.  The guy crooked a finger and Brendon made his way to the front, his body protesting with every step.  “Harmon,” he repeated, quieter now that they were within speaking distance.

“Don’t you think you oughta be getting home?” the bus driver said.  His vest had the name ‘Roger’ written on it in permanent ink.  Brendon looked at the worn letters and shrugged.  “I bet whoever’s there is awful worried about you,” Roger said.  Zack probably was worried, if not ready to kill him.  Brendon wouldn’t know though.  He’d put his phone on silent.  

“You should go home.  Get yourself some rest.  Bad days don’t last, y’know.”  Roger was being too nice for Brendon to argue with him, so he just muttered an ‘okay’ and plopped himself down in the front seat.  His bad day had been lasting for quite a while with no sign of getting better. Maybe bad days did last.  He couldn’t be sure.  He just knew this one was going to get worse.

“What’s your building?” he asked once they hit Harmon.  The bus route went right past the front door anyways, but the stops were each two blocks in either direction.  “I’ll drop you off in front.”

Brendon told him the building and got to his feet once the wheels stopped sliding on the ice.  “Thanks, Roger.”

“You be good now.  Go to school tomorrow.”  Brendon didn’t know who this guy thought he was, telling Brendon what to do and all, but he just nodded and hopped down onto the sidewalk.  He wasn’t going to school the next day if he could help it.  A peek at his reflection on the glass window of the building door revealed that any trace of bruises on his face were healed.  A glance at his phone revealed half a dozen missed calls and the time-- 2:30.  School was practically over.  It hadn’t felt like he’d been on the bus that long.

As expected, Zack was waiting for him when he unlocked the apartment door and let himself inside.  The man stood immediately from his seat at the kitchen table and walked over, arms crossed.  Brendon raised his chin to look up at him and tried not to act guilty.   Maybe, just maybe, he could get away with this one.  Or maybe Zack was finally going to snap and hit him or tell him to pack his bags.  He didn’t care what they all insisted; Brendon knew he wasn’t easy to deal with and was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Brendon Boyd Urie, where the hell have you been?” Zack insisted.  Brendon tried to put on his look of perfect innocence, the one he’d used his whole childhood to get out of trouble.  It was a long shot with the way his heart was hammering guiltily in his chest, but it was worth a try.

“At school,” he said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Zack shook his head sadly.  “Why are you lying to me, Brendon?”

“I’m not!” he yelled in a voice that sounded offended even though he knew he had no right to be.  He was lying after all, and he shouldn’t have even entertained the thought of getting away with this.

“That’s funny,” Zack replied, sarcastic.  “Then tell me why I just got off the phone with your principal.  We’re having a meeting with her tomorrow to discuss your truancy issues.”

“What?” Brendon asked, face pulling into a scowl.  A meeting with the principal?  That was serious.  Brendon had met with her a few times that year, and he didn’t like her very much.  She was too young to be so cranky, but then again she had to deal with Brendon, so maybe he couldn’t blame her.  

But still.  It was unfair that he was in trouble when it was the other dickheads at school who were pushing him around and giving him black eyes and sharing naked pictures of him on the internet.  This whole thing wasn’t any fair.  He said so.

“Well that’s just too bad.  You’ve gotten yourself in a whole lot of trouble here, and unless you have a damned good explanation, I don’t know what to tell you, kid.”  

He had an explanation, was the thing.  He had a great explanation, but to explain the bullying, he’d have to come clean about the pictures and about seeing Shane after he’d said he wouldn’t and all those times he went to parties when he was supposed to be at Sarah’s house and… he couldn’t.  Zack would kick him out for sure.  He’d done this all to himself.

“If there’s something going on, you need to tell me about it.  Because I can’t help unless you tell me.”  He wanted to tell him so bad.  He needed help with this, but there was nothing to do.  The guidance counselor had even said so.  He was asking for it.

Brendon swallowed hard.  “There’s nothing going on….”

“Nothing going on?” Zack was the one to snap this time, and Brendon flinched back involuntarily.  “This is the fourth call I’ve gotten from your school this year.  What am I supposed to tell them when they call me and ask what the hell is going on with you?”

“I don’t know…”  Brendon mumbled.  Zack had been irritated from the start, but now he was seriously starting to get angry.  Brendon could feel it, smell it, sense it everywhere, and it was overwhelming.

“Where were you all day?” Zack demanded.  Too scared to lie and try saying he was at school again, Brendon focused his gaze on the thin rug underneath them and told the truth.

“On the bus….”

“All day?”  Brendon nodded.  “You spent the entire day on the freezing bus with the money I gave you to get a ride home?  You could have made yourself sick!”

“I’ll pay you back for the-”

“You really think I’m angry about the money right now, Brendon?  Really?” Zack demanded, voice dangerous.  Brendon felt his eyes sting, and he shook his head.

“No.”

“You think that ditching school is acceptable behavior, young man?”  

“No.”  Brendon’s eyes watered.  This was the part where he hit him.  This was the part where he took his belt to Brendon or gave him another black eye or left bruises for him to poke at later.  This was the part that he was never strong enough for, and he’d break down, and Zack would just get madder and tell him not to be a pussy, to take it like a man.  This was the part where he opened the door and shoved Brendon out, telling him good luck out there on his own, but he couldn’t do this anymore.  

Instead of any of that, there was just another question.

“You think this is okay?”

“No sir,” he answered, just in case.

“Damn right it isn’t,” Zack sighed, sounding more exasperated than angry at the moment.  “You’re going to get kicked out of school at this rate.”

“I’m sorry….”

“Well sorry isn’t good enough right now, Brendon.  I want a God damned explanation!”

Brendon closed his eyes and shook his head.  “I….” I can’t.  “I don’t have one….”

A long drawn-out silence encouraged Brendon to look up again, and he found Zack frowning heavily. “I am very disappointed in you,” he said.  “Go to your room.  We will finish this conversation later.”

There it was-- ‘I am very disappointed in you.’  Those words stung from Zack more than they had coming from his own father.  Zack had taken him in.  Zack had been nice to him and let him into the pack and taken care of him, and Brendon was just letting him down the same way he let everyone down.  He should have thrown himself in front of that fucking bus.

“Now, Brendon!”  

Brendon ran to his room, tightening his hand on his backpack and shoving past Zack, and slammed the door behind him as tears finally started pouring out of his eyes.

**  
  
**

…

“Hey,” Ryan said as he came into the room.  Brendon jumped and scrambled about, shoving something into his dresser drawer and pulling at his shirt sleeves.  He stared at Ryan wide eyed, heart pounding and mouth hanging open. Ryan waited for him to say something, but after Brendon just opened and closed his mouth a few times, he rolled his eyes and continued.  “Where were you today?  I was gonna eat lunch with you.  Saw your friend Sarah, but she wouldn’t talk to me.  Was arguing with that kid with the mustache.  Your boyfriend, right?” Ryan threw his jacket at his bed, and it landed on the floor.   He left it and threw himself on the bed instead.

He figured that if he and Brendon were going to be roommates they might as well learn to be friends, and for some reason Brendon was easier to talk to when he wasn’t actually talking.  Maybe Ryan was just unnerved by the silence after spending two weeks with the never ending talking; he’d been praying for silence, but now that he had it, he didn’t know what to do with himself.  Brendon just kept staring at him.

“O-kay…” he said slowly. He sniffed the air and crinkled his nose up.  “This room smells weird-”

“-Our room,” Brendon interrupted, startling Ryan.

“Huh?”

Brendon pulled his gaze away and looked at the wall.  “Oh, uhm.  It’s just… It’s your room too, y’know.   You’re freaking Zack out the way you say that,” he said.  “He thinks you’re gonna just bolt again.”

Ryan sat up and looked around his half of the room.  It kind of was his at this point, he supposed.  He had a few more clothes than he’d had before-- stuff he’d picked up at Goodwill or that had been handed down from Jon or Spencer-- that were at home in dresser drawers.  His backpack had school books taking lodge in it.  It’s not like he had a lot of stuff to spread around and claim the room as his, but having to pack everything up again would make it a bit harder to disappear in the middle of the night.  Maybe he didn’t want to.

He shrugged.  “Yeah, well.  I don’t plan on it.”

Brendon nodded and wrapped his arms around himself.  “Yeah, okay.  Cool.”

“Speaking of Zack,” Ryan decided to push the conversation forward while he had the kid talking.  Objects in motion tended to stay in motion and all that.  “He’s, like, really pissed off today.  What’s that about?”

Brendon scowled instantly and moved across the room to yank the window open.  A cold breeze rolled through and Ryan shivered, goosebumps immediately rising up on his arms, and the back of his neck lining with fur.  It felt weird.

“Nothing,” Brendon said.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Ryan wasn’t worried until Brendon said that, but he could act indifferent if he had to, he supposed.  He hadn’t been there long enough to start asking questions and stirring up trouble.  He’d let them do their thing, and maybe one day he’d actually feel like a part of the…. pack…?  family….? here, or maybe he’d be gone by then.

“Dinner!” Spencer’s voice rang through the apartment, and Ryan shook the thoughts off as he sat up.  

“You comin’?” he asked Brendon, who didn’t even spare a glance at him as he sprawled out face first on his bed.  

“Not hungry.”  Ryan raised an eyebrow.  Weird.  Not his problem though.  He shut the window so that they wouldn’t all freeze to death and headed to the kitchen for dinner.  Maybe he wouldn’t leave so soon.  There was food here, after all, and Ryan had learned not to take advantage of things like that.

**  
  
  
**

…

The principal’s office looked the same as it always did.  The school was overcompensating for the frigid temperatures outside by cranking the heat all the way up, and Brendon was sweating under his collar.  He tugged at it, causing Zack to frown down at him.  Brendon dropped his hands back to his lap.

He was wearing the button-up shirt to look more like a model citizen.  He figured that showing up in his usual clothes, which made him look like a skater on good days and a camp geek on bad days, depending what t-shirt he wore, wouldn’t make a great impression.  Zack was a bit worried about him getting kicked out of school, so Brendon was appeasing him.  His old church shirt was a bit too tight on him at this point (apparently he had grown a bit over the last year), and it just made it harder to breathe.  

Brendon was seated in a not-as-comfortable-as-it-looks chair next to Zack, who was in his own uncomfortable chair, and across from his principal.  Miss Marks was frowning at him with her hands folded on the desk over his file, which Brendon really wished didn’t exist.  It wasn’t bad, per se, but it also wasn’t good.  Miss Marks was a scary woman, the kind of lady who made you pronounce her name like it was spelled with ‘z’s.  Mizzzz Marks.  Brendon hated everything about her and felt guilty about it.

She cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow.  He was supposed to be listening.  He made himself tune back in, even though almost the whole conversation was between her and Zack.  Brendon didn’t get why he had to be there to listen to them talk about him.

“This is the third time this has happened, and while we usually start a clean slate with each semester, I believe this is the kind of behavior that needs to be nipped in the bud before it gets worse.”

‘Yeah, well,’ Brendon thought, ‘it’s only downhill from here.’   At least he wasn’t in class.

Zack nodded like that made sense, and Brendon fidgeted in his seat a bit.  He’d been too scared to actually talk to Zack since their conversation in the living room the past afternoon.  He hadn’t had the energy to get out of bed that morning, but fear of what Zack might do if he pushed it any farther had gotten him up. He felt like he was constantly on the brink of tears, which was miserable, because he was a guy and guys don’t cry and he really needed to get a hold of himself.  The marks on his arm had turned to scars, but they were still an angry pink, and every time Brendon remembered he just about choked.  He tried not to think about it and instead focused on what Miss Marks was saying.

“I think suspension for the rest of today and detention after school for the next two weeks will be appropriate.” Her voice was low and resonating, the kind of voice that makes you shrink a little in your seat when it’s directed at you.  Especially with the tone she was using now.  When she raised an eyebrow at Brendon, he literally gulped.  “Does that sound fair?”

It didn’t sound fair, actually.  He wanted to be as far away from school as possible, and now he had to be there more.  But he wasn’t willing to say that with the way Zack was frowning at him like he was disappointed, and Miss Marks was frowning like she was bored and wanted to be done with this situation

“Yes ma’am.  That’s fair,” Brendon said quietly.

 

“Very well.  I turn him back over to you.” She looked at Zack again and gave a smile that wasn’t really a smile at all.  Her eyes snapped back to Brendon and he flinched.  “And Brendon, I hope I don’t have to see you in here again any time soon.”

 

“Yes ma’am,” Brendon murmured.  He followed Zack’s guiding hand as it pulled him up out of his chair by the arm and lead him down the hallway.  Once they were out the front door and Brendon was pulling his coat back on, Zack’s grip on his arm turned into a hand ruffling his hair.  

He said, “Want to go get lunch, pup?”

Brendon didn’t.  He wanted to go back to bed and never get up again.  He didn’t want to go sit some place and have to talk to Zack about this.  He wasn’t even hungry.  His appetite was on strike.

**  
“Sure.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos to kcracken my beta and yourstalkerr my everything. go check their stuff out :)


	4. The Gospel On Giving Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ayye if you're still here, you can just read the chapter. I'm too tired for summaries tonight

It started at lunch.Ryan exited the kitchen line with his hands full, two slices of greasy pizza disaster that smelled heavenly piled onto his tray.He took a step, turning to head for a table to join, when he saw the scene unfold before him.It was over before it started.  

 

Some kid, a sophomore or maybe a junior-- Ryan couldn’t be sure --reached out and smacked the lunch tray right out of Brendon’s hands.A small crowd of people was hanging around to watch, and Ryan looked through a window over someone’s shoulder as Brendon practically growled and shoved the other boy hard with both hands. 

 

Well shit.It wasn’t his place, really; he knew that.He and Brendon weren’t friends, but they lived together and that counted for something as far as Ryan was concerned.Besides, he didn’t like seeing little guys getting beaten into the floor by bigger guys.He ditched his tray on an unoccupied lunch table and shoved his way through the small crowd, squirming between bodies and using pointy elbows to his advantage. 

 

By the time he emerged the other side, however, Brendon was bolting out the cafeteria door and the boy who’d been messing with him stood there smirking in front of the clusterfuck that had once been a school lunch. 

 

Over before it started.Ryan didn’t worry about it.It wasn’t his fight, and if nothing had really happened, he should just stay out of it.He turned on his heel and pushed through the fading crowd. He plopped down in front of his tray and spent the lunch hour power-studying for the English test he had to make up after school.

 

…

 

He totally aced that English test, and Ryan felt that he deserved to celebrate.He smirked to himself and made his way down the empty hallway without a hitch as the detention bell rang overhead.Brendon had detention that night, he remembered.He walked a bit faster and hoped he didn’t bump into him.Ryan walked back to the apartment _alone._ That was his thing, and his chance to listen to music without incessant chattering or sighing or someone calling him to help with the dishes.The walk home was _his._

 

The vending machines he was looking for were on the other side of the school right outside the gym.It wasn’t a long walk, only a few minutes.Noise from the gym got louder as he approached- shoes squeaking against polished wood floors and heavy breathing and the consistent BANG BANG BANG of basketballs smacking down.Everything smelled like sweat, and Ryan entertained a vague thought about trying out for basketball next year.He’d missed it since Florida.He wasn’t tall, but he was quick and scrappy, and now he had some heightened abilities from the werewolf thing that could help him out.

 

If he’d been paying attention he probably would have heard or sensed something before he got to it, but he’d been lost in his head.By the time he snapped back to reality he was face to face with a scene way too similar to earlier at lunch, but this time it was Brendon on the floor, not his lunch.

 

“Get on your knees, faggot.”The order came from the same guy who’d been messing with him earlier.Ryan stood just around the corner, unnoticed and hoping to stay that way until otherwise necessary.He was ready to jump in and kick some ass when a fight broke out, which it was going to.He dropped his bag silently and balled his fists, jaw clenched and ready to hit someone, but then Brendon’s knees hit the linoleum, and Ryan’s mouth fell open.

 

“You look good like that.”Brendon flinched back when the kid reached for him, but he didn’t struggle at all as his backpack was ripped from his shoulder and promptly dumped over his head.The small audience of sadistic bystanders snickered. 

 

Ryan’s own bag stayed abandoned on the floor as he rushed forward and yanked Brendon’s bag out of the bully’s hands.“What the hell, man?” he demanded, and he was way out of his weight class here.He had to raise his chin to look this kid in the eyes, and if this guy decided to make this physical, Ryan probably didn’t stand a chance.Didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

 

“Still got people fighting for you, huh Brendon?” the kid asked, and Ryan moved, trying to make himself bigger and placing himself between the two of them.The audience kept watching, but they weren’t snickering anymore.Their amusement had been replaced by uneasiness.

 

“Don’t talk to him,” Ryan snapped.  

 

“What?He likes it!Hasn’t moved a muscle.” The kid crossed his arms over his chest and smirked, chin raising up, and Ryan felt even smaller.There was something churning inside of him that he was used to by this point, that he’d felt throughout his life when he’d been angry.It was a churning, tingling feeling in his spine and through his body.It buzzed and ached and made Ryan want to jump at them.He used to think everyone felt this, and for a while he’d been afraid of this, but he wasn’t so scared of it anymore.

 

“Brendon, get up,” Ryan ordered, because if shit went down, he didn’t want Brendon just _sitting_ there.He felt Brendon shift behind him, starting to get up.

 

“Stay there,” the other kid said, and Brendon fell right back down again.Ryan didn’t know who he wanted to smack more in this situation.The kid in front of him smirked.“He knows his place,” he said, slowly and deliberately. Ryan snapped.

 

“What the fuck is the matter with you!?” Ryan demanded, lunging forward into the guy’s space, but the other guy reacted quickly and shoved him hard with two hands in the middle of his chest.Ryan toppled back. The only thing keeping him from falling on his ass was Brendon's hands catching him, one on his back and one on his hip keeping him upright. 

 

The guy glared. “You faggots better watch your backs,” he threatened, then he turned and stalked off, kicking a spilled book down the hall for good measure. The crowd who'd been watching dissipated slowly.

 

Ryan stayed still, simply breathing in and out and trying to get the adrenaline pumping through his veins to calm down.A shuffling noise behind him brought Ryan out of himself, and he turned to see Brendon scooping books off the floor. He sighed and crouched down to help. 

 

Brendon wasn't talking, and maybe if he had been Ryan would have been able to stop himself.As it was…. “What the hell was all of that?”

 

Brendon surprisingly didn't flinch.He stared at Ryan with wide eyes before shrugging and going back to his gathering business. 

 

“You don't just let people do that shit to you,” Ryan said. “I would have knocked that guy the fuck out.”

 

Brendon deflated.Upon closer inspection Ryan could see his hands were shaking where he was trying to shove books back into his bag.The strap was broken. He struggled with the haphazard stack in his hand before Ryan took it away from him and slid them into the bag himself.Brendon shrunk away from him and shook his head slowly. “Well I’m not you,” he murmured.  

 

Ryan gathered together a handful of pens and glanced up at Brendon.“You just have to stand up for yourself,” he said.  

 

Brendon shook his head again.He pulled the bag away from Ryan and rose to his feet.“If you do what they want, it’s over faster.It’s just easier that way.Trust me.”

 

“It’s over faster?” he asked, mulling that over in his head as he stood up and dusted his pants off.This was more than ‘if you ignore the bully they’ll go away’ advice.He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

 

“You know.” Brendon sighed like a dying man.“It’s over faster.If you fight it, they get mad, or like…. They, like, see it as a challenge or something…. and then it gets worse.But if you shut up and take it, they get bored faster and walk away.”

 

“Yeah, until the next day, when they feel like messing with you again and know you won’t do anything to stop them.”Ryan’s temper was quickly turning up to eleven again, and he knew Brendon could sense it bubbling up in him, because he shied back.No, fuck.Ryan wasn’t supposed to be scaring him.  

 

“What, did this like… did this happen before?”That was a dumb question.Of course it happened before.Kids didn’t just come up with these kind of ideas right away.‘If I do what they want they’ll stop hitting me.’Jesus Christ.  

 

“Don’t tell Zack, okay?” Brendon asked.He wrapped his arms around his bag like a teddy bear since both straps were torn, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting uneasily.If there was ever a time to involve a responsible adult, it would probably be now.But this wasn’t his fight, he reminded himself.This was Brendon’s, and telling by the way he was staring Ryan down, he didn’t appreciate the help.Well, fine.  

 

Ryan shrugged before heading down the hallway to retrieve his own backpack.He scooped up the last kicked book as he went.Tugging his oversized coat tight around himself, he called over his shoulder, “Hey, you ever seen Spinal Tap?We should watch that after school.”

 

Brendon didn’t respond, but he followed Ryan out of the school and down the sidewalk, so that was something.

 

…

 

It’s just a matter of time, Brendon knew, before Ryan told someone. It’d all be over.He’d been in detention for just about a week, and he was technically “grounded”, although Zack hadn’t laid down exactly what that meant.Zack wanted to talk about it, of course he did, but Brendon was avoiding that conversation like the plague.He was staying at school all day, going to detention, spending a lot of extra time in his room “doing his homework,” and not picking fights about green beans over dinner.He deserved some credit if he was suffering through green beans, in his humble opinion.He was doing his best to stay out of trouble, too, but apparently Ryan was trying to ruin that.It was cool that he was standing up for Brendon and all, but it would be cooler if he would just… not.Standing up to people always ended in bigger bruises and more trouble.

 

Brendon needed to stay out of trouble.

 

So he had three goals.1.Avoid talking about “what was wrong” with Zack.2. Stay out of trouble to keep that talk or anything worse from happening.3.Get Dylan to stay on this stupid skateboard for like ten seconds.

 

That last one, so far, was not a major success.Brendon was quickly learning that skateboards and kittens don’t mix well; he had a series of scratches healing on his arm to prove it.

 

Perhaps he should just give up, but he felt guilty lying in bed as much as he had been lately. His homework had been finished hours ago, and he had to do something to stay out of the living room and away from ‘the talk.’

 

Besides, having a skateboarding cat would be freaking amazing.

 

“So work with me here,” Brendon said to the cat, who looked at him unamused before licking his paw and rubbing it over his face.At least he was sitting on the skateboard, Brendon supposed.That was progress. 

 

He picked him up around the middle and sat him feet first on the board, standing.“Attempt number thirty-four,” he murmured to himself.Dylan had that look in his eye which meant he was just about to bite again when the door creaked open and they both looked up.

 

“Hey,” Jon said, bringing a camera up and snapping a picture.Brendon grinned.He liked having his picture taken.Jon smiled at Brendon over his lowered camera and winked.“That one’s going in the album.Zack wants to talk to you.” 

 

Brendon flopped back on the floor with a heavy sigh, and Dylan took the opportunity to scratch at Brendon’s ankle and bolt under the bed.Brendon sighed again.It was time, then.There was no more avoiding it. Unless….

 

“Tell him I’m sick,” he said.

 

The door opened again, this time wide enough to allow Zack through the door.“Yeah, liar,” the older wolf said.He clapped his hand on Jon’s shoulder and hinted that Spencer might be trying to play Halo again in the living room, which got him out of there pretty quickly.He closed the door and slowly sat down on the floor.That was the only indicator that it wasn’t the end of the world when he said, “We need to talk.”

 

It could be nothing, or he could be in a hell of a lot of trouble.Brendon sat up and pulled his knees up to his chest.He was kind of scared to find out which.  

 

“About what?” he asked.

 

“About school.And about you.You doing okay, bud?”Brendon’s father used to call him that, once upon a time of little league and participation ribbons and Sunday family game night after devotions every weekend.He tried not to think about that.After everything that had happened, being angry with his parents was the only thing that made sense.Any other emotion built up a lump in his throat that was hard to breathe around.It was just easier to be angry and forget the rest.

 

How was he doing?He’d wanted someone to ask him that for a while, but now that it was actually happening, all his words were stuck in his throat.He shrugged.“I’m great,” he said.He lied.God, he was even messing this up. 

 

“I know I might have been a bit harsh about what happened last week--”Harsh.Ha.If only he knew.“-- but I really need you to understand something.”

 

Brendon nodded and rearranged himself, legs crossed and hands folded in his lap.Zack looked him in the eyes before continuing. “We’re on some pretty thin ice here.A single guy with four adopted kids is bound to raise a few eyebrows around here.I’m sure some people already suspect, but we don’t want to give them any reason to push it.”

 

Brendon actually had no idea what he was talking about.It might have shown on his face or something, because Zack skipped right to the point. 

 

“People aren’t too fond of werewolves around here,” he said.Oh.That.To be fair, Jon had told him that people weren’t too fond of werewolves anywhere else either.The only people actually fond of werewolves were other werewolves, and as was shown with Ryan, that wasn’t always the case either.  

 

“If there’s too much trouble, people are going to question why.It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out our situation here, and if news got out about what we are, it would be very, very bad.”

 

It couldn’t be much worse, Brendon thought.But no.If Zack was worried about it, then Brendon had to do his best to keep them in the closet, or…. There was probably a new phrase for it; Brendon just didn’t know it yet.

 

He nodded.“I’ll stay out of trouble,” he said.  

 

“That’s all I ask.”Zack looked relieved.What?As if Brendon was going to scoff and say ‘no, fuck you old man, I do what I want.’No way, not in a million years.Partially because Zack was all big and scary, but also because he just _couldn’t._ It was _Zack._ “Also, Brendon,” he added.“If there’s anything going on… you know you can come talk to me about it.”

 

He really couldn’t, but he appreciated the thought.He forced a grin to show that and said, “Thanks.Yeah, I will.Totally.”  

 

Zack looked skeptical, and Brendon didn’t blame him, honestly.After a moment though he clapped Brendon on the shoulder and stood up.“Alright then.I have to get to work.Bed before midnight, okay?”

 

He nodded obediently, and Zack grinned at him and walked out, shutting the door just as Dylan darted through.Brendon sighed.Dumb old cat.He’d teach him to skateboard eventually, but Brendon wasn’t up for much besides going to bed right now.He got to his feet and curled up with his blanket pulled up to his chin.He could jerk off if he wanted; Ryan was still in the living room probably.But nah…That took too much energy.Brendon thought about it for a good minute, but by the time he decided on ‘no’ he was already half asleep anyways.  

 

He made a note onto his mental list.Things to do:1. Avoid talking about “what was wrong” with Zack.2. Figure out how to act more normal so Zack actually believes nothing is wrong.3. Teach Jon’s cat how to skateboard.4. Stay out of trouble to keep the town from driving them out with metaphorical pitchforks.

 

Or literal pitchforks, maybe.

 

God, he really didn’t want to get up in the morning.

 

 

…

 

Brendon needed a pitchfork.It would be good for pushing people away, or poking at them when they got too close.He could swing it around to scare them off, or hit them with it if it came down to that.He didn’t have a pitchfork, though he did have a sore knee from getting tripped on his way out of Spanish class.  

 

That was fine though.It was no big deal, and Brendon was in the middle of picking himself up off the floor when Ryan rushed over.He was about to say, ‘no’ or ‘don’t’, but then Ryan punched Joey straight in the face.No ‘hello’ or ‘fuck off’ or nothing.  

 

And well, similar to everything else in Brendon’s life, it was all downhill from there.

 

 

…

 

 

“The fuck, guys?” Zack said, and then instantly realized perhaps that wasn’t the thing to say when picking his youngest pack members up from the principal’s office. The aging secretary was frowning at him over her outdated glasses, like it was Zack’s bad language and thus awful parenting that ended them all up there in the first place. 

 

There were five boys there, and while Zack definitely wasn’t pleased that two of them were his, it was better than being responsible for the whole group.At least someone else’s kids were getting into trouble, too.  

 

Miss Marks had explained the whole thing on the phone with him, so there was nothing else to do but take the boys home.That was good.He’d rather not have them start healing right there in the office and raising eyebrows.  

 

They were both pretty beat up, and it was obvious that they’d been on the losing end of this fight.One of the other boys had a busted lip and another sported angry red lines down his neck and arm.Zack was willing to bet Ryan was responsible for those.If he’d been on the streets for half a year, he had to know how to fight dirty.

 

Attack, probably, but he obviously couldn’t defend himself for shit.He and Brendon had black eyes.Ryan had a bruise on his cheek and his jeans were ripped at the knee.The blood on his shirt either belonged to someone else or had come from his bloody knuckles.Zack was going to have to call his mom and ask her how to remove blood stains.That was going to be a fun conversation.He might just call Maggie instead.She had experience with this kind of thing.  

 

If Ryan was a mess, Brendon was an absolute disaster with a black eye and a split lip leaking into a crumpled tissue. The tears pouring down his face didn’t improve the situation.Neither did the way Ryan was sat down between Brendon and the others, a careful glare trained on the opposing team. 

 

Well, Zack really shouldn’t have been surprised, he supposed.He just thought it would take Ryan more than three weeks into school before getting into this kind of trouble.Three weeks in and they were already threatening to kick him out.

 

Zack signed them out and handed the secretary her pen back.  

 

“Alright, c’mon guys,” he said.Brendon shuffled over easily, clutching a lump of tissues to his face.He had one arm wrapped around his bag because the straps had apparently broken.How the fuck had that happened?Ryan moved to get up, and Zack wasn’t paying enough attention to know what was happening, looking over Brendon instead, but the next thing he knew, Ryan was yelling “Shut the fuck up!” and lunging at one of the boys for round two.Zack got a hold on his arm and hauled him back just in time, Ryan yelling and struggling the whole way.Zack just grabbed him by the ear and Brendon by the back of his jacket and pulled them both out of the school.  

 

Ryan shoved free and rubbed viciously at his ear when they got to the car.Zack just opened the back door and herded them both inside.He climbed into the driver’s seat after shutting the door firmly behind them and adjusted the rearview mirror for eye contact instead of turning the car on.

 

“What happened?” he asked.The two boys exchanged a look, which broke when Brendon dropped his eyes to his lap and Ryan rolled his with a quiet sigh.

 

“Nothing,” he said, as if Zack hadn’t just watched that exchange happen, or I don’t know, picked them up from the principal’s office bloody and bruised with threats of expulsion following them out the door.They were pretty damn lucky they hadn’t gotten expelled when it came down to it, and Miss Marks had made it clear that she wouldn’t be as lenient if this happened again.Zack said it wouldn’t happen again.He wasn’t so sure.

 

Ryan he could understand.He was new to the state, new to the pack, and new to the school.He was a teenage runaway, and he was angry.This was his first time in a public school after months of being all on his own, so it made sense that he was acting out.  

 

It would have made sense for Brendon, too, seeing as he’d had a pretty rough time before joining the pack.Acting out would seem totally natural _if it had started earlier._ Brendon’s teachers all said the same thing in the report Miss Marks showed him.He was such a sweet kid; he’d been so social before; he’d been doing so well.Now he was unmotivated and antisocial.He wasn’t paying attention in class, his grades were down, and he had a bad attitude.Everyone wanted to know what was going on, and they were all turning to Zack since Brendon wasn’t talking about it.Well, seeing as _Brendon wasn’t talking about it_ , he had nothing to tell them.

 

‘Is he having trouble at home?’ they asked.  

 

“Brendon?” Zack asked, twisting in his seat. “Look at me.”They made hesitant eye contact, but the kid just shrugged.

 

“Nothing happened,” he said.“It was an accident.It won’t happen again.”

 

Next to him Ryan was glaring down at the hole in his jeans.

 

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said.Ryan growled.  

 

Right.Well.There wasn’t any reason to waste more time in the school parking lot.He didn’t see the point of lecturing them, since they’d gotten an earful in the office.They _knew_ what they did wrong.Yelling at them now wouldn’t change the fact that they already did it.Zack heaved a sigh and put the car into reverse, pulling out of the parking space and driving them home.

 

 

…

 

 

He called Maggie on the phone before talking to them again, and she told him the same thing she always did.“These kids need time,” she’d said.“Teenagers are never easy, but especially not these ones.”

 

“This is what you get for taking in strays.”

 

And also, “You’re doing the right thing, taking care of these kids.”

 

He wasn’t doing a very good job of it in his own opinion, but he didn’t tell her that of course.She would have just argued with him, and anyways, she had more important things to do than listen to him feeling sorry for himself.They talked for a little while longer, and Zack pushed the phone off onto Jon once they were done.God only knows how long it had been since that boy had talked to his mother. 

 

They were grounded, of course, because he couldn’t just let them off easy for this.Fortunately enough, they weren’t very surprised to hear the news.Ryan had been sitting at the kitchen table, poking at the now tender, pink skin on his knuckles, and he’d just shrugged and said, “Yeah, figures.”

 

Brendon didn’t say anything, which was unnerving.He had the same expression on his face that was always there when he got in trouble-- a hesitant, untrusting ‘that’s it…?’ It made Zack want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but that would be pretty counterproductive to the cause.It would probably take them all the way back to step one from nearly a year ago.  

 

‘Is he having trouble at home?’As if Zack would ever let that happen.As fucking if.

 

‘This is what you get for taking in strays.’He did this to himself.Yeah, yeah he knew.  

 

Another thing Maggie said, one of the things she always said, was, “You need to find a way to talk to them.”  

 

“Are you ready to tell me what happened at school today?” Zack pulled out a chair and sat with them at the kitchen table.He continued on when Ryan opened his mouth.“And don’t say ‘nothing,’ because something obviously happened.”

 

Ryan’s mouth snapped shut.The convenient thing about teenagers was they were absolutely awful at lying, at least in Zack’s experience.They were too twitchy, all dropped eye contact and bitten lips and bouncing knees.Ryan’s eyes shifted to Brendon before he shrugged, and well, yeah, Zack knew that already.He sighed.For whatever reason, he wasn’t going to get anything out of Ryan.  

 

“Can you give us a minute?” he asked instead, and Ryan shrugged again, phone turned off and forgotten on the kitchen table as he headed to his and Brendon’s shared room.Zack turned his attention back on Brendon who, of course, wouldn’t look at him.

 

“Look,” he started, “I know that something is going on with you, and I know you don’t want to talk about it.But with the amount of trouble you’ve been getting yourself into, that’s not going to fly anymore.”

 

Brendon squirmed in his seat and Zack paused, waiting for the silence to draw Brendon’s eyes up to his before continuing.The kid’s heart was hammering away in his chest and he smelt scared.Zack wished there was some way to comfort him, but Brendon should have known by this point that there was nothing here to be scared of.He’d have to get over it eventually.

 

“You were just going to be grounded through your suspension-” oh God, having them both locked up in the apartment for the next week was going to be _fun_.“-but I’ve changed my mind.You can either tell me what’s going on _now_ , or you’re grounded until you do.”

 

Brendon blinked up at him.It was actually a bit surprising when he face broke into a scowl.He slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms, muttering, “Guess I’ll be grounded forever then.”

 

“It’s up to you,” Zack told him.  

 

Brendon rolled his eyes.“Sure,” he said.“Of course.You’re right.It’s my fault.”He stood up and tossed his phone on the table, and a moment after he’d left for his room, Zack heard a door slam.He sighed, resting his head on his hand and letting out a low growl.When he opened his eyes, Spencer was standing there staring at him, eyebrow raised, and Zack didn’t have the patience for him right at that moment.

 

Thankfully the only thing out of his mouth was, “What’s going on?”

 

“Ask Brendon,” Zack said.“He might actually tell _you_.”It wasn’t a good feeling, being bitter against a fifteen year old, but if the kid wasn’t going to be reasonable then Zack wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.  

 

“I’ll try,” Spencer said, shrugging and going off. 

 

“Good luck,” Zack called after him.He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge.After today he deserved a fucking beer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been very active lately, but believe me when I say the storms are brewing. Expect a slew of posts by the end of next month, not only for this but for a lot of secret side projects as well. If you care, that's awesome. If not, that's cool too. 
> 
> Comments always appreciated.


	5. Do You Ever Want to Just Disappear?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm too tired to type a summary. just read it <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this chapter is pretty fucking sad and features a suicide attempt. If this is too much for you and you don't feel comfy reading it, shoot me a message and I'll tell you want happened instead :)

Ryan was apparently some kind of prodigy at Guitar Hero.  He was a total hustler, and Jon was in the middle of getting his ass kicked when Brendon started yelling.  Ryan and Brendon were both grounded, but Zack had left for work already and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.  

 

It was predictably harder to play with Brendon shoving at his shoulder.  

 

“Fuck off, B,” Jon said lazily, throwing an elbow at the younger wolf and missing two notes.

 

“No, no, guys you have to see this!  Jon, come  _ on _ !”

 

His blue button was sticking horribly.  He was literally Living On a Prayer with this stupid song.  He could play it fine on the actual guitar, yet here he was totally dropping the ball. 

 

When Ryan grabbed the remote and turned the volume up several notches, Brendon gave up on him and wandered off to bother somebody else.  A few minutes later, Spencer patiently allowed himself to be dragged off to the balcony, and then his voice piped up.

 

“Um… Jon…?  You’re gonna want to see this….” Jon growled and tossed his controller to the side as the TV exploded in boos, the screen flashing red.  

 

“Nice,” Ryan drawled, slouching in his seat and poking idly at the buttons, probably switching to single player so Jon’s sucking couldn’t drag him down any further.  Yeah, whatever.  Jon flicked him in the ear on his way to the balcony, just because he could.

 

“What?” he asked and then paused.  There was nothing out there, though the smell of burnt gasoline hung heavy in the air, burning sharp in his sinuses.

 

“Just wait,” Brendon told him, bouncing idly on the balls of his feet and tugging at Jon’s sleeve, even though Jon was already there and didn’t need to be tugged at.  He put up with it anyways.  “Here it comes!”

 

True to his word, in that second a truck came roaring down the street.  It was old and dirty, and there were people hanging out in the back of it.  One of them was holding up a picket sign.  Another was holding a megaphone.  The side of the truck had been painted messily, a simple black “W” with a larger, more obvious red “M” painted over it.  Jon heard the words ringing through his head before the blow horn guy even said them. 

 

_ “Monster. Imposters. Humanity conquers.” _  That slogan had been around since the first brave wolves had made their way out into the open.  It was on the internet, on the news, and even on billboards in some parts of the country.  It was shouted on courthouse steps from the mouths of protesters, but the most memorable time that phrase had been used was in a video clip that had aired on the news two years ago, of a man holding a gun to the middle of a young woman’s forehead, muttering those words behind the camera, and pulling the trigger.

 

Anyone who knew anything about wolf rights knew that slogan.  It never lead to anything but trouble.

“Well,” Jon said, “Shit.”

 

“What are they doing?” Brendon asked, clinging onto him now.  There were two more trucks trailing the first, one of which was painted with the WM symbol and another painted with the words “save the kids.”

 

“Save the kids from what?” Brendon asked. 

 

“Let’s get inside,” Spencer said.  “We should call Zack.”  He turned and headed in, obviously expecting the others to follow, but Brendon was clutching tight to Jon’s arm, and Jon had no intentions of going anywhere.  He wanted to watch this.  He wasn’t sure he could have moved even if he’d tried. 

 

Spencer snapped, “ _ Guys _ .”  They didn’t budge.  Behind them, Ryan shoved his way out onto the balcony.  

 

“What’s going on?” he asked.

 

Spencer threw his hands up and exclaimed, “For the love of fuck, you’re going to get yourselves  _ shot _ .”

 

Almost as if on command, the sound of a shotgun firing cracked through the air.  Brendon jumped.  Mock howling followed next, human noises singing out of the throats of the young men in the trucks.  

 

“What are they doing?” Ryan asked. 

 

“They’ve driven past the building three times,” Brendon answered.

 

“Now they’re circling it.  I’m serious, guys, get in the fucking apartment!” Spencer was probably seconds away from physically dragging them all inside, probably all at once.  God knows he could do it.  Jon couldn’t move though.  His legs were stuck, and his stomach was churning in a way that burned like acid.  Another gunshot rang out.  Lights were turning on in the windows across the street.  

 

“Wolves burn in hell!” someone on one of the trucks screamed, and then Jon wasn’t sure what happened, if it was a lighter or a match or what, but a brush pile in the back of one of the trucks was lit ablaze and the men started howling again.  One of them started chanting.

 

_ “Monsters! Imposters! Humanity conquers!.” _

 

_ “Two four six eight.  Save the kids.  It’s not too late.” _

 

The smoke from their truck swirled through the air, ripe and sharp and awful.  It hit Jon like a truck, and his stomach lurched.  A gunshot rang out.  His vision swam black, and Brendon’s voice yelled out, “Spencer!” 

 

Jon came back to himself as Spencer was dropping him on the couch.  As soon as he was down, he sat up and hurled all over the floor and his knees.  Well fuck.  That was going to be fun to clean up.  

 

“Brendon, lock that door and get Zack on the phone,” Spencer said, picking Jon’s phone up off the coffee table and tossing it.  Brendon fumbled with it but managed to catch it, then firmly locked the door.  He looked a little green, but the extent of his reaction was rubbing viciously at his nose.

 

Spencer sniffed and rubbed at his nose as well, then glanced to the kitchen where Ryan was emptying his stomach into the sink.  

 

“What  _ is _ that stuff? It’s  _ awful _ .” Brendon whined a bit in his throat and rubbed at his eyes.  “Ugh, it fucking  _ burns. _ ”

 

Jon didn’t feel like talking.  He smelled like vomit now, and he was worried that any attempt at speaking might spill the remaining contents of his stomach all over the floor.  Still, he was the only one who knew what was going on here.  

 

“Wolfsbane,” he said quietly, hand over his mouth just in case.  “We can’t stand it.  Some people line their yards with it to keep us out, but if you burn it like that it’s even worse.”  He had to pause for a moment to let his stomach toss around again.  Spencer crossed the room and turned on a fan.  “It’s worse for borns than for bitten.”

 

Which was curious.  Ryan had told them he left home because of being a werewolf, so Jon had just assumed he’d been bitten recently.  But he was still puking his guts out in the kitchen sink.  It shouldn’t have hit him that hard if he was only a year or so old.  Brendon was one and only seemed slightly irritated.  

 

“I thought you were bitten,” Jon asked, voice coming out more accusing that he meant, but he’d just thrown up on himself and some asshole outside had a shotgun.  Politeness wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

 

Ryan was done puking.  He leaned back against the kitchen sink and wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand.  He looked green, and some of his blonde hair was falling into his eyes over his sweaty forehead.

 

“I’m complicated,” he said.

 

Jon wasn’t totally ready to accept that as an answer, and neither was Spencer apparently.  He snapped, “Explain,” and then with the purse of his lips he said, “Brendon.  Get Zack on the phone.”

 

Brendon had the phone to his ear that second and he paced for a while, probably trying to get an answer.  Zack must have picked up, because Brendon went off a mile a minute.  Jon was too dizzy to follow what he was saying.  He sank back, closed his eyes, and let everything become background noise for a while.   At some point he heard Spencer’s voice replace Brendon’s on the phone and someone walking around.  He couldn’t tell who it was.  He didn’t have it in him to move just yet. 

 

After a while, either a few minutes or a long time, a hand in his hair pulled Jon back to reality where Spencer was leaning over and looking at him.  

 

“Come on,” Spencer said.  “Let’s get you cleaned up.  Zack’s on his way home.”

 

His mouth tasted like death.  His head was pounding.  It wasn’t fair to feel hung-over when he hadn’t even gotten drunk. 

 

“He shouldn’t come home,” Jon found himself saying, surprised by his own voice and how wrecked it sounded.  Fuck.  “He can’t miss too much work.”

 

“Let him worry about that,” Spencer replied, hoisting Jon to his feet with barely any effort at all.  That wasn’t fair. Why did Spencer get to be so strong?  Jon was ages older than him.  It wasn’t fair.

 

“Yeah, well maybe you should work out more then,” Spencer said in a voice that meant he wasn’t really listening.  That was okay.  Jon hadn’t meant to be thinking outloud.

 

They made their way to the bathroom, and Jon immediately slumped back against the sink when Spencer let him go. He heeded Spencer’s warning to “... not throw up on me, Walker.  I swear to God.”  He didn’t even question how he could throw up on Spencer, with Spencer being taller than him and all, and just worked on keeping his empty stomach settled and himself upright.  His vision was swimming in and out.  He wouldn’t throw up on Spencer, he was sure of that, but he just might pass out on top of him.  

 

It took a few minutes, or maybe seconds, but he came to when he felt something tugging at his jeans. He blinked the shadows from his eyes to find Spencer kneeling in front of him, hands carefully fingering open the fly without touching any of the mess on the denim.  Jon couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled up in the back of his throat.

 

‘What kind of dream is this?’ he wondered.  His lips curled up in a dirty smirk, and Spencer looked up at him.  He looked so fucking cute, with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and his overgrown hair hanging in front of his eyes.  Jon wished everything didn’t smell so sour and awful, because then he’d be able to catch Spencer’s scent, and that would just be amazing.

 

“Fuck you.”  

 

Jon just about fell over when Spencer shoved himself to his feet.  He was glaring, hard.  Jon blinked and caught himself on the sink.  “Clean yourself up.  Fuck,” Spencer spat, and then was gone, bathroom door slamming behind him.

 

‘Well,’ Jon thought.  ‘Fuck.’  His jeans were unbuttoned, but still attached to him and still disgusting.  He started the task of getting them off, which was pretty hard in his current state.  Something else was on its way to getting hard, and Jon scowled at it.  Now was not the time.  Didn’t he have any self-control?  Apparently not.

  
  


…

  
  


Sarah was waiting for him at his locker that morning, but Brendon didn’t really have time to talk.  He was almost late because Zack had driven him and Ryan to school that morning after dropping Jon off for his morning shift at Starbucks.  The roads were an icy mess, but Zack was bent on driving them.  They had to be more careful, he said, after the thing the other night.  Brendon had been super worried about how sick Ryan and Jon got, but they were better by then.  It wasn’t nice to think this, but he was sure glad that he was bitten instead of born, so that the wolfsbane didn’t make him sick like that.  He hated throwing up, but all he’d gotten was a headache.

 

Although, if he was sick he’d be able to go back to bed and stay there, which was all he really wanted.  Bummer.

 

“Hey,” he said to Sarah, because she was blocking his locker and she’d have to move so he could put his books away and go to class.  Maybe if she didn’t move he wouldn’t have to go to class.  That wouldn’t be so bad.

 

“Oh, you’re talking to me again?” she asked.  Brendon chewed on his bottom lip.  She was mad.  Great.  It was gonna be that kind of conversation.  

 

“What are you talking about?” he asked her.  “My phone got taken away, and you know I couldn’t hang out when I was suspended.”  He fiddled nervously with the strap of his backpack.  Zack had sewn it back on for him.  That was pretty cool.  Brendon wished he’d paid more attention when his mom had tried teaching him years ago.  That way Zack wouldn’t have to do it, and he wouldn’t be so much of a bother.

 

“That-” she pointed at him.  “-is exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s like you’re in a  whole other world!” 

 

Brendon blinked and chewed on his lip.  Right, right.  He needed to pay attention.

 

“And not just that.  Where have you been during lunch?  And after school?  It’s like you’re avoiding me.” 

 

Sarah had every right to be mad at him.  He deserved it, but that didn’t mean he liked getting yelled at.  He felt too tired to defend himself.  “It’s easier to eat in the library,” he said.  “Nobody bothers me in there.  I just… I haven’t been feeling good lately.” 

 

The bell rang above their heads, and Brendon mumbled something about going to class.  He didn’t need his books, he supposed, but he couldn’t ditch class.  He’d get suspended again.  He couldn’t hang out in the hallway any longer.  Someone would mess with him, and he’d get expelled.  God, this was such a big mess.  

 

He turned to go, but Sarah caught his arm and pulled him back.  “This is hard for me too, yknow?  I may not be the one getting beat up, but everyone knows me as the weird gay kid’s friend.  It would be nice if my weird gay friend wasn’t ignoring me.”

 

‘Weird gay kid.’  Yeah, that’s all he was then.  Even Sarah thought so.

 

“I’m worried about you,” she said.  “But I can’t help you if you keep shutting me out.”

 

Brendon closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He felt irrationally angry.  He wanted to growl at her.  Instead, he just tugged his arm free.  “Don’t bother,” he murmured, and then stormed off down the hallway.  There were tears forming in his eyes.  Great.  Sarah was going to hate him now, and he was going to show up to class late and crying.  As if he didn’t get enough shit already. 

 

To make everything worse, he saw Shane on his way to class.  He almost waved before catching himself.  He held tighter to his bag and kept walking.  Shane didn’t even glance at him.  

  
  
  


…

  
  


It was a strange coincidence that Brendon and Ryan had the same health class.  Ryan hadn’t taken it at his other school, but he needed it to graduate.  State law or something.  Brendon hadn’t even realized it, because Brendon’s assigned seat was in the front row and Ryan’s was in the back corner.  There were half a dozen Ryan’s at his school.  It hadn’t caught his attention during attendance every day.  

 

He noticed that day, though.  He’d gone to the cafeteria for lunch to try and make it up to Sarah.  She hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t been at the library or the stairwell either.  He’d ran out of time to eat, so by sixth period health class his stomach was growling, and he felt absolutely devastated. 

 

‘Whatever,’ he told himself.  ‘This was bound to happen eventually.’  Why would she be friends with him anyways?  It was for the best.  Now she could have friends she really liked.  Friends who could text back and hang out and actually smile and not think about punching the mirror every time he passed one.  She deserved to have good friends.  Normal friends.  Not stupid, psycho friends.  Not faggot friends.  

 

Today was not a good day.

 

They were talking about STD’s in health class.  This was just as inevitable as Sarah giving up on him.  He’d known it was coming.  They were going straight through the textbook, and here they were.  Chapter four, STD’s and Aids.

 

There was a video playing on the smartboard.  His health teacher loved videos, maybe because teaching health class to giggling teenagers wasn’t much fun or maybe because he was primarily the gym teacher and didn’t want to be there any more than they did.

 

Last class’s video had been on abstinence.  This kid everyone called Smitt (what kind of a name was that?  Brendon was partially sure that wasn’t his real name) sat right behind him and liked to make comments during class.  During the abstinence video he’d kicked the leg of Brendon’s seat and whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Maybe Brendon should have seen this one a few months ago!”  Brendon didn’t say anything; neither did anyone else.  They all laughed though.

 

The aids video was, predictably, more exciting for Smitt.  “You pay attention now,” he said, poking Brendon in the shoulder with his pencil as the video was just starting.  Brendon didn’t say anything.

 

“Hey look, it’s your boyfriend!” There was a totally flaming guy on screen.  Great.  Stereotyping.  Brendon ignored him.

 

“Maybe you already have it,” Smitt said.  Brendon stayed silent.

 

“Think you gave it to Shane?  Does that make you a murderer?”  Nothing. 

 

“What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral, aids boy?”  

 

“ _ Would you leave him alone already? _ ” a voice burst out from the back of the room.  Brendon whipped around fast enough to make himself dizzy.  Ah, of course.  There was Ryan, clenching his fists and standing at his desk.  

 

“Who the fuck are you?  His new boyfriend?” Smitt asked, laughing.  

 

“Nah, I’m your mother’s,” Ryan snapped back.  There was quiet laughter floating around the classroom from the various comments.  Smitt didn’t even pause though.

 

“You got aids too, faggot?” 

 

Ryan was laying into him again, and Brendon didn’t realize what he was doing before he stood up and yelled, “Stop it!” Ryan froze, mouth open with half a word still trapped inside, but Brendon wasn’t done yet.

 

“Just leave it, okay? Just give it a fucking rest.” 

 

The video froze on the screen and a light flickered on overhead.  “What is going on here?” their teacher asked.  Mister… mister something.  Brendon could never remember the man’s name.  He honestly didn’t care enough.

 

He slumped back down in his seat and crossed his arms.  He wasn’t going to say anything, and he hoped to hell that Ryan dropped it.  He glanced back at him to see the older boy scowl directly at him and mutter, “Nothing,” as he sunk back down in his seat.  

 

Behind him, Smitt was snickering.  

 

“Another peep will land you two in detention,” Mr. Whatever said, pointing at Ryan and Brendon in turn with a stern look on his face.  Brendon slumped down farther in his seat and closed his eyes.  They really couldn’t afford detention or another trip to the principal’s office.  They also couldn’t afford to be losing their tempers like that.  What if Ryan snapped and bit somebody?  What if he shifted in a fight?  They’d get shot on their way home from school, probably.  Zack had warned them about what was going on in town.  They needed to be really fucking careful.

 

And if being careful meant yelling at Ryan, then so be it.  Brendon could smell his anger pulsing all the way from the back, and he felt awful about it.  Figures.  He got Sarah and Ryan both to hate him in less that five hours.  He didn’t have any friends left.  Everything fucking sucked.

  
  


…

 

He instinctively threw a punch when an arm wrapped around his neck in the hallway.  His fist connected with something solid before he caught his attacker’s scent and heard him laugh.  

 

“Well look at that,” Ryan said, keeping an arm around him and dragging him off down the hallway.  “You’re not entirely useless after all.”  Brendon’s not sure if he trying to be funny or serious, so he just tried at a grin and tripped after him as he got pulled along down the hallway.  They passed Sarah, and Brendon tried to wave at her, but she totally ignored him.  That was fine. 

 

“I’m starving,” Ryan said.  “We’re stopping by Dairy Queen before going home.”  He only let go of Brendon when they got to the front door of the school.  Someone wolf whistled at them as they made their way carefully down the icy steps.  That phrase was pretty ironic, considering…. 

 

“But we’re grounded,” he argued.  “We’re supposed to go straight back to the apartment, remember?”  Jon had told him to be careful referring to the apartment as ‘home’ around Ryan, cause he always got this weird look on his face and this vaguely upset scent about him.  Jon didn’t really understand why, though, and Spencer had said it wasn’t any of their business.  Brendon kind of got it. 

 

“We won’t be late if we run,” Ryan said.  Brendon’s shoes slipped on a patch of ice disguised as a puddle, so Ryan just grabbed his arm and dragged him along.  “Hurry up.”

 

He hurried up.  If he went too slow, he’d probably freeze to death with the windchill.  He’d freeze over entirely and clatter to the ground like solid ice.  What a way to die….

 

“Aren’t you mad at me?” Brendon asked.  His hands were starting to turn red and numb.  He cupped them and blew hot breath into them.  Ryan looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.  His hair was falling in his eyes, and when he flicked it away there were snowflakes sitting on his eyelashes.  

 

“Why would I be mad at you?” 

 

“Health class,” Brendon said, and Ryan shrugged.  He bit his lip and blew out a long breath, watching the resulting cloud swirl around with the falling snowflakes.  “We can’t keep getting into fights.”

 

“You can’t just let people mess with you,” Ryan responded.  Brendon sighed.  Ryan said, “I’m gonna teach you how to fight tonight,” and then a snowball flew and smacked him in the side of the head.  Brendon gasped, and Ryan cursed and rubbed the ice off his red face.  

 

“What the fuck?” 

 

“Watch out, faggots!” The next one to hit wasn’t a snowball, it was an egg.  It smashed into the side of a building just to their right.  The sticky mess exploded everywhere.  Another egg flew and hit Brendon in the shoulder.  Ryan grabbed his arm again and ran.  

 

They got about two blocks down the street, followed by splattering eggs and pounding footsteps.  Older people stopped and frowned at them as Ryan shoved them out of the way.  Someone honked their car horn at them.  Their car got immediately hit with an egg.  Ryan slipped and went down on a patch of ice that the salt hadn’t taken care of.  Someone grabbed the back of Brendon’s jacket. 

 

Joey yanked him back and shook him.  “Look what we have here,” he said.  From the ground, Ryan kicked out at Joey’s legs and moved to get up, and Joey kicked him back down with a foot in the middle of his chest.  “Now listen up.  I ain’t about to get expelled for your fairy ass, but don’t think we won’t be keeping our eyes on you.”  One of his buddies crossed their arms.  Joey shook him around some more.  “Just you wait until one of your buddies isn’t there to stand up for you.” 

 

Joey winked at him and slapped the last remaining egg down on top of Brendon’s head, grinding it in hard until it hurt and egg yolk dripped down Brendon’s nose.  “See you around,” he said menacingly, before turning and heading down the sidewalk.  His buddies followed and spurted laughter the whole way.  

 

Brendon looked down at Ryan, who scoffed as he shoved himself to his feet.  “God,” he spat.  “The sick fucks.  Eggs?  Really?”  He wiped some of the runny gunk off his shoulder with a sneer and stomping the egg yolk into the ground.  The palms of both of his hands were bloody and raw from the fall, and claws had bursted out from both his hands.  

 

Brendon’s eyes widened and he smacked Ryan on the arm.  “Hide those,” he whispered a bit frantically.  Ryan just shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets.  When he slid his tongue over his teeth, Brendon could see his canines protruding.  His eyes were shining gold. 

 

“God damn it,” Brendon cursed and grabbed Ryan by the arm.  Oh how the tables have turned.  “Come on.  Let’s just get home.”

 

Ryan let himself get dragged down the sidewalk, but he wiped at egg mess and ranted about how he ought to have beat those mother fuckers to the ground the whole time.  Brendon wasn’t really listening.  He was too focused on what had just happened.  It wasn’t the threat of salmonella from the egg yolk running over his lips that had him concerned, but more of the threat Joey had given him and the message they’d sent.

 

They weren’t willing to get expelled, but they were willing to follow him after school.  God only knew what they would do to him there.  He had Ryan, but Ryan wasn’t much for fighting and this time he’d shifted over in the middle of it.  He was going to expose the pack, and then Brendon wouldn’t just get beaten bloody by some high school dickheads.  He and the rest of the pack would get shot and mounted on someone’s wall.  It was only a matter of time, and it was all his fault.

 

Zack gave them a funny look when they came inside.  He asked, “What the hell happened to you guys?”

 

“Snowball fight,” Ryan said.  Brendon didn’t want to hear the rest of the conversation.  He shrugged his coat off, tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair, and headed to the bathroom for a shower.

  
  


…

 

Brendon couldn’t sleep.  It was midnight and he’d been trying for three hours now and he just couldn’t.  His mind was racing.  He wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

 

Zack wasn’t home.  Spencer was dead tired from some big project he’d been working on and had passed out around nine instead of watching a movie with Jon in the living room.  He’d been acting weird lately, and Brendon didn’t miss the suspicious glances and worried scent he adapted whenever they were in the same room.  

 

He’d promised Spencer that he would stop, but he couldn’t.  Well, it wasn’t exactly that he  _ couldn’t _ stop hurting himself.  It was that he couldn’t stop feeling shitty all of the time, so he didn’t want to stop hurting himself.  He knew it was wrong.  He knew there were a dozen things wrong with that and he needed to stop and he was disappointing Spencer every time he did it, but he couldn’t help himself.  

 

He was so fucking pathetic.  He had no self-control.  If he’d had any at all he wouldn’t have yelled at Sarah that morning, and she wouldn’t hate him.  But he did, so she did…. He just kind of ruined everything.

 

His dad was right, Brendon decided.  Maybe he was a bit unconventional with his way of handling things, but he just wanted to make Brendon better.  If Brendon had just tried hard enough, none of that would have happened.  He shouldn’t have come out to Spencer, and subsequently everyone else.  He shouldn’t have argued with his parents so much.  If he hadn’t wanted to run away that one day he wouldn’t be a werewolf now, and if he’d just been able to control himself that stupid night in the kitchen he would still have a home. 

 

A home with parents who loved him.  Zack didn’t love him.  He was just too nice to kick him out on the street.  Brendon knew that he wasn’t wanted there, though.  He was nothing but trouble, and Zack was never anything but irritated with him.  Everyone was irritated with him.  Even Jon.  Even Ryan and Spencer and now Sarah.  It would probably be better for everyone if he just disappeared.

 

12:03 a.m.  Fuck.  He had class in eight hours.  He needed to get some sleep. 

 

He couldn’t though.  Just like he couldn’t do anything else right, he couldn’t get his brain to shut down and let him rest.  He’d had a nightmare the night before.  He was so exhausted.

 

The inky darkness swirled around the ceiling above his head, and if Brendon stared at it any longer he was going to drive himself insane.  Next to him, Ryan rolled over and snored.  Everything was getting on his nerves.  He couldn’t do this.  He had to do  _ something. _

 

Brendon got up and made his way to the bathroom for a drink of water.  He could have gone to the kitchen, but he felt like that would be too much light.  Someone might wake up.  So he went to the bathroom and shut the door tight before flicking the lightswitch.  He caught his reflection in the big mirror above the sink and scowled.

 

Ugly.  Awful.  No wonder Shane didn’t want to be seen with him.  There were zits on his forehead and bags under his eyes, and his nose was too big and his mouth was all stupid and he was pale and ugly and awful.  The tears that formed in his eyes and streaked down his cheeks didn’t make it any better.  He swallowed hard and glared at himself in the mirror.

 

“I hate you,” he said to himself.  He wanted to cry.  Loud, violent, throwing himself on the floor crying, but that wouldn’t solve anything.  It would just wake everyone up, and it wouldn’t make him feel any better.  Brendon was stupid and immature a lot of the times, but he wasn’t  _ that _ immature.  He tried not to be, at least.

 

He could have drank the water from his hands, but he decided to look for a dixie cup instead.  They were cute.  Tiny paper cups…. They were all yellow and had smiley faces on them.  If Brendon wasn’t going to be happy at least the cup deserved to be.

 

Several things clattered into the sink when he jerked open the medicine cabinet door: Spencer’s raser, a half-empty tube of toothpaste, a bobby pin that nobody knew what to do with, and a bottle of aspirin.  Brendon winced, hissing in a breath and glancing at the closed door.  He waited, frozen, for a good thirty seconds for someone to come investigate and ask why he was awake, but when nobody did he let himself relax ever so slightly.  

 

He carefully put everything back in its place but faltered at the aspirin.  Zack took it every morning for  _ something _ … for whatever adults take it for.  It might have been mentioned in a Cheerios commercial.  He couldn’t be sure.  This bottle was new, though, almost entirely full, and there was a mostly empty one that took up shelf space next to it.  

 

Brendon glanced between the two and weighed his options.  It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d considered this.  He’d been considering this quite a lot actually, for quite a while.  Over a year at least, but it had started to seem more beneficial in these last few weeks.  Months maybe?  He wasn’t so good with time.  It felt like forever.

 

He’d watched a movie where someone had done this.  They’d run a bath and swallowed a bunch of aspirin and just peacefully fallen asleep.  That didn’t sound so bad, and it would solve all of his problems.  Afterall, Smitt asked him almost regularly in health class, “Why don’t you just kill yourself already?”  Maybe he had a point.

 

If Brendon was that much of a nuisance to someone who barely knew him, he didn’t even want to imagine how bad it was for everyone else.  For Spencer and Jon and Ryan and  _ Zack _ and Sarah.  

 

If Brendon just went away, they wouldn’t have so much to worry about.  He would finally not be bothering them.

 

His hands shook as he maneuvered the child safety lock.  It opened with an easy pop, and Brendon caught the cap right before it fell to the floor.  He set it gently on the bathroom sink.  He didn’t want to make too much noise.

 

Unsure of what he wanted to do just yet, Brendon held the bottle in his hands and sat down on the floor.  He leaned back against the wall, felt the cool surface through the thin material of his t-shirt and watched goosebumps raise up on his arms.  He was still crying-- couldn’t stop really-- but he felt a bit calmer.  He wiped his runny nose on the back of his hand and looked the bottle over.

 

Medicines still didn’t have safety information and dosages for werewolves, but Jon said they were working on that.  This bottle said that someone his age should take two, and not more than eight in twenty-four hours.  He tapped his finger against the plastic and considered that.

 

Wolves were stronger than humans, so it would probably take more.  The girl in the movie he watched had taken ten or so.  So Brendon should take… twenty?  Twenty should get the job done.

 

His hands were trembling worse now, making the pills rattle quietly.  He set down the bottle and took a deep breath, tipped his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling.  The wetness in his eyes made the lights look bleary, like stars.  Too bright like a hospital.

 

He could go to hell for this, but he supposed he didn’t believe in hell anymore if he didn’t believe in God.  A year or so ago he couldn’t have gone through with this, too scared of the outcome.  Two years ago he’d been in a position like this without the pills, crying as quietly as he could manage in the middle of the night and begging God to please just make him normal.  Just fix him.  Help him not disappoint his family.

 

Well that hadn’t fucking worked.  Either God didn’t give a shit or he didn’t exist.  Brendon liked to focus on the latter, because the idea of someone else not giving a shit made him feel nauseous.  He wasn’t fixed.  He’d gotten  _ worse _ and now he was disappointing everyone. 

 

Brendon picked up the bottle again, held it against his knees and weighed his options.  What did he have to lose?   _ Nothing _ , a bitter voice in his head supplied unhelpfully.  A new batch of tears burned behind his eyes, and he shut them tight.  He could leave a note, he supposed, but then he’d have to go find paper and a pen and someone might wake up.  He didn’t have much time, only another hour or so-- Zack was working later now that he’d been promoted to first bartender rather than second-- before Zack came home, and then it would be too late.  He had to act fast, stop being a pussy, and just finally do it already. 

 

Well, he thought to himself, it’s settled then. 

 

He pushed up off the wall and clammered to his feet without spilling anything.  He wasn’t the best at swallowing pills, so he took the dixie cup and filled it with water.  He dumped a number of pills out into his hand and counted them.  Seven.  He set them on the counter and poured more, slowly and methodically making his way up to twenty.  When he got there, pills spilled gently out on the bathroom sink, he added one more for good measure and then put the cap back on the bottle. 

 

Everyone will be happier this way, he told himself, putting the pills back on his palm one by one.   _ You _ ’ll be happier this way.  Fourteen.  Fifteen.  You’ll finally get some sleep.  Brendon’s mother used to tell him to go to sleep early on a bad day and then things would be better when he woke up.  Well, he’d tried going to sleep early, but now going to sleep might actually help.  Maybe the pills will help him sleep.  He never wanted to wake up.

 

Eighteen.  Nineteen. 

 

He wiped his eyes again and held his hand up to his mouth, tipping all of the pills in.  He swallowed hard, grimaced, and chased them with the whole cup of water.  He refilled it, emptied the cup again, and leaned his hands on the counter to catch his breath.

 

Well, he did it. That was it then.  He couldn’t believe he’d done that.  He wanted to believe that he could already feel them taking effect, that he could feel the molasses slow tug of exhaustion tugging at his eyelids.  

 

He supposed this made him an actual nut case, then, but it wasn’t like it mattered.  He wouldn’t have to wake up after this, so it didn’t fucking matter.  He looked at himself in the mirror, the zits and the shadows and the tear tracks down his face.  His nose was red and runny and his bottom lip trembled by its own accord. 

 

He was so fucking tired. 

 

He looked down at the still angry pink lines on his arm just below his elbow and considered opening them up again, but with the way his hands were shaking he didn’t think he could manage that.  He looked down at one scar, a thicker line than all the others, and remembered Spencer sitting him down and patching it up.  He wondered if that was really his first attempt at killing himself, not this.  If maybe he’d been trying to without fully realizing it.

 

Fuck.  He was going to die…. 

 

There was nothing left to do but go to bed then, he supposed.  He could do that.  That sounded nice.  He was cold, and maybe his blankets were still warm.  

 

He opened the cabinet carefully and set the bottle back in it’s place.  It was pretty big-- a 500 count.  He wondered if Zack would notice the missing pills.  Not like it would matter.

  
His bed seemed so far away as he switched off the bathroom light and stumbled his way towards it.  Brendon was careful to be asleep so Ryan wouldn’t wake up, and his bed was cold when he curled up again.  That was okay.  He was so tired.  He pulled his blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes, waiting for his head to finally,  _ finally _ just stop….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments almost as much as I love you guys. If anyone knows where Kcracken went, lemme know. I miss that kid, and this chapter is probably full of errors.
> 
> It's my birthday, so drop a comment on this chapter!! Wanna be friends? punks-n-rec . tumblr . com I have a wolf!verse tag, so go check it out


	6. Permanent Jet Lag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nah son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to #12. you know who you are.
> 
> shoutout to kcracken. may shitty email spiffs never keep us apart.
> 
> shoutout to anyone reading this, because 1. you're reading an unfinished fic. thank you for your confidence in me. 2. you made it to book three holy shit. and 3. i promised a quick update and then took forever. AGAIN. next time I promise a quick update just ignore me. 
> 
> shoutout to deez nuts

Joey and his gang had made a game of following Brendon around after school, and it was really starting to freak him out.  There were three of them and one of him, unless Ryan was there, but then it was still three big guys against two little guys.  Two werewolf guys, sure, but being a werewolf didn’t mean shit.  Not unless you were like Spencer.  Brendon was kind of jealous, until he remembered that Spencer actually killed someone.  Brendon wasn’t sure he’d be able to live with himself after that.  Ha.  He could barely live with himself anyways.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to, though, because he was honestly pretty scared that his stalkers were going to corner him somewhere and actually kill him.

 

       The ironic thing, Brendon thought, was that he was supposed to be dead.  Then Joey and the others wouldn’t have to waste their time threatening him and following him around.  He wondered if they would miss him.  If Brendon’s plan had actually worked last night, would they have waited around in the hallways wondering where he was?  If they announced the news over the loud speaker, would they have blamed themselves?

 

       Thinking about that made Brendon feel kind of sick-- er… more sick.  He’d felt like shit all day, like God was smiting him for trying to off himself.  He probably shouldn’t have felt so nonchalant about the whole thing.

 

       He thought, though, next time he tried that he would leave a note.  It would be pretty shitty of him to do it with no explanation.  Because he figured if Joey and them might blame themselves for Brendon ending up dead, maybe other people would too, and… no.  That wasn’t okay.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really. It especially wasn’t Spencer’s or Jon’s or Zack’s fault, and… fuck, he had to find a better way to do this.

 

       He was almost to the door of his building when the wolf truck came ambling past.  That’s what they’d started calling it.  It didn’t have the bonfire or picket signs or megaphones all the time, but it was still the truck.  It had the WM symbol painted on both sides, a few bible verses stuck on the bumper, and a huge confederate flag attached to the cab and billowing over the bed of the truck.  That last part didn’t even make sense.  The confederate flag had nothing to do with being against werewolves.  Wolves were on both sides of the Civil War, according to Jon, and Brendon figured if anyone was a valid source, it was him.  And also they were in Colorado, a state that had nothing to do with the Civil War, wasn’t even close to the south.  That guy knew less history than Brendon did, and that was pretty sad.

 

       Oh well.  Brendon shrugged and headed into the building, savored the feeling of his hands and legs defrosting and wondered what it would feel like to be dead.  He didn’t have the energy to climb the five flights of stairs up to the apartment, so he punched at the ancient, glacier slow elevator button and waited.  He’d barely made it home; hell, he’d barely made it through the school day.

 

       He’d woken up around three a.m. because his stomach was on fire.  He barely made it to the bathroom in time, the way his vision kept blacking out, his head spinning like a top, and his knees going to Jell-O underneath him.  It took him a while, a good bit of time puking his chemical guts out, until he realized that he was supposed to be dead, and that he’d obviously fucked up.  He couldn’t tell at that point if he wanted to be dead or alive anymore.  It was kind of hard to think when his thoughts kept fading to black as he passed out against the bathroom sink, only to be jolted awake to empty his stomach again.  

 

       He stayed in there for a few good hours until he felt he had himself a little better under control and managed to crawl to bed.  It was six a.m.  Spencer would be getting up soon, and it was with that thought that Brendon realized somebody would have to find him.  That if he’d been successful, Spencer might have come into the bathroom that morning and found him there and… yeah.  He was probably going to throw up again if he didn’t stop thinking about it.

 

       His head swam uncomfortably, so he leaned back against the wall of the elevator and took deep breaths.  He hadn’t been able to catch his breath all day.

  
  


       The first thing he did when he made it back to the apartment was collapse onto the couch.  It was funny how after all of that, all he wanted was to feel better.  He felt like shit.  The only reason he’d gone to school was so that Zack wouldn’t think he was sick and start asking questions.  He didn’t want Zack to know what he’d tried to do to himself.  He didn’t want anyone to know, except that he kind of did.  He mostly just wanted a hug.

 

       Nobody was home.  That was kind of a relief.  He thought about calling his mom, but she didn’t want to talk to him.  She’d told him to get out.  She wouldn’t answer the phone if he tried.  He wondered how she would react if she heard the news.  If.  Ha.  Of course she’d hear.  It was a small town.  They’d put the story in the paper, on the radio… He didn’t want that kind of attention.

 

       He was so sick of attention.  He’d started crying that afternoon in health class and it was the most humiliating thing ever.  His stomach churned just thinking about it.  

 

       It had been a bad day, which was the ultimate kick in the teeth, because it wasn’t supposed to be any kind of day at all, but he as such a failure that he couldn’t even kill himself properly.  God… he’d tried to kill himself. 

 

       Anyways.  Snap out of it.  It had been a bad day.  Besides feeling like absolute shit the whole day- weak and shaking and headachey and nauseated- he’d bumped into Shane that morning, and Shane had actually talked to him.  It was just a ‘hello,’ but Brendon had been too stunned to say anything back.  He’d gotten yelled at in gym and spent most of the class sitting against the wall so he wouldn’t pass the fuck out.  Ryan had been missing all day even though they’d walked to school together that morning.  He’d seen the bathroom sandwich kid again, but the kid had smelled really sad and wouldn’t wave back.

 

       That all would have been fine, though.  He could have handled all of that.  The worst was right after lunch, before health class.  He’d felt awful and overheated and Sarah had dragged him outside to sit in the cool air for a while.  She asked what was wrong.  He’d said it was the flu.  She said he had a fever, and he’d been too out of it to stop her from stripping off his coat and sweater.  Too disoriented to remember why that would be a problem. 

 

       Speak of the devil-- she was texting him: “remember, you promised me.”

 

       Yeah, yeah, he’d promised.  She’d pulled his sweater off of him because he was sweating through it and trembling, even though it was only thirty degrees outside.  She’d been wearing a coat and a scarf.  She’d made him sit down and lean forward, head on his knees because he told her the room was spinning.  Because he’d felt awful and she was the first person to be nice to him all day.  She’d sat with him and held his hand, but then she turned his arm over and then she saw. 

 

       God, the look on her face.  He hated himself for making her look like that.  Now there were two people who knew, Spencer and Sarah, and Brendon couldn’t keep this up.  He couldn’t keep disappointing everyone.  They shouldn’t have to deal with all of his bullshit.  Which was why he had to do it; he had to just… stop.  Stop everything so he would stop hurting everyone.  His family, his pack, his friend… It was for the best.

 

       Another text came in: “text me if you feel bad, okay?”

 

       She was so sweet.  God.  Joke’s on her, though.  Brendon always felt bad.

 

       “Okay :)” he sent back, then “thanks.”

 

       He was a lying piece of shit.  She didn’t deserve this.  Brendon pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and curled up with it, grabbed the remote and turned cartoons on low to soothe his headache.  His eyes burned so he closed them for a bit.  He hadn’t slept more than an hour the night before.  He just wanted some rest.

  
  


…

  
  


       “What happened to your family?” He hadn’t meant to ask it, and he caught himself by surprise as much as he did Spencer.  Spencer, to his credit, barely reacted.  He just calmly hit his blinker and switched lanes. 

 

       Ryan hadn’t heard anything about Spencer’s family the way he heard about Jon’s, but it also didn’t have the stigma around it the way Brendon’s family did.  He knew better than to ask about Brendon’s family; on the other hand, he simply didn’t know whether or not he could ask about Spencer’s.

 

       He felt like Spencer got him, maybe.  Like, if anyone in the pack was going to understand, it’d be Spencer.  He could have been totally off base on that though.  It could have been all in his head.

 

       “They moved away,” Spencer answered.  “I didn’t want to go with them, so I didn’t.”

 

       Ryan tried to imagine himself doing that, looking his mother in the eyes and saying, “No, go ahead and move halfway across the country without me.”  She never would have gone for it.  He wondered what that said about Spencer’s parents, then reminded himself that he’d snuck out of the house and hopped a bus at 1 a.m.  Spencer staying in Colorado could have had nothing to do with his parents.  Ryan didn’t know the situation.

 

       “You don’t talk to them anymore,” he said, and it was supposed to be a question.  It just didn’t come out that way.

 

       Spencer shrugged.  “It’s…” It was like he almost said ‘complicated’ and then thought better of it.  He frowned.  “Keeping contact with them is hard when they’re so far away and there’s so much I can’t tell them about.”

 

       “They don’t know you’re a werewolf?” Ryan asked.  That reasoning made him feel a bit better about not contacting his friends back in Florida.  It would be too hard.  He wasn’t the same person he was a year ago.  He wasn’t the same William.

 

       “They know,” Spencer said.  “They just don’t want to talk about it.  My mom especially.”

 

       Ryan ended up speaking without thinking again.  Maybe he was just dying to tell someone.  “My mom either,” he said.        Spencer glanced at him and raised an eyebrow before speeding up through a green light turned yellow.  “Your mom knows?” he asked.

 

       Ryan nodded.  “My dad was a wolf,” he said.  “He left when I was a baby, and my mom’s told me stories forever, about how werewolves are dangerous and all that bad stuff they do.  I guess when I didn’t shift as a toddler she assumed I wouldn’t at all.  Me either, but then…”

 

       “You weren’t bit then?” Spencer asked.  “Jon’s been wondering about that.”

 

       “I just assumed I was fully human.”

 

       Spencer tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he spoke.  “I didn’t think anything like this could ever happen to me.  And the way people talked about it… We’re so much more human than everyone assumes.  Kind of wish my family could see that.”

 

       “I left to protect her,” Ryan confessed.  “My mom.  She was so convinced that we were monsters… fuck, man, if she could see me now.” He laughed bitterly.

 

       “I’m dressed like my dad,” Spencer laughed.  “You remembered the list, right?”

 

       Ryan dug the list out of his pocket while Spencer pulled into the parking space.  He brought his wallet out with it and caught sight of his old school I.D. 

 

       “The best thing is,” Spencer started, voice taken by the wind as he climbed out of the car.  Ryan followed him out and glanced at Spencer over the top of the car.  The older boy slipped sunglasses onto his face to shield against the blinding snow and said, “I’m still the same person, after all of this.  I don’t think I’m the monster everyone expected me to be.”

 

       Ryan contemplated that as they walked towards the store front, shoes squeaking on the packed snow underfoot.  He wondered what his mom, what his friends, what his pastor would say if they saw him now.  They’d say, “William, what are you doing, man?” 

 

       He wondered what they would think of him if they knew what he’d done on the road.  The people he talked to, slept next to, shared a car with.  He’d given handjobs and a few blowjobs and cuddled close to strangers on cold nights.  He’d stolen from more places than he could count.  He wondered what  _ he _ thought of him, if after everything he was still himself.  He felt like he was.  Even if he’d made it through a train wreck, he’d still made it, and maybe he didn’t have to be an entirely different person now that he had some sense of normalcy again.

 

       Maybe all those books he read were full of shit.  

 

       He glanced down at sophomore him on his old school I.D., still tucked into his wallet, smiling bright eyed with braces and awful hair.  William R. Key.  He had the fake I.D. on him, too.  Ryan Key the third.  Ryan wasn’t sure he knew who either of those people were anymore.

       He’d changed from William for two reasons: to make it harder for anyone trying to track down William, the teenage runaway from Jacksonville, Florida, and to distance himself as far as he could from his runaway father, his namesake.

 

       “Are you mad at them?” Ryan asked, trailing Spencer through the store into the bread aisle.  “For leaving?”

 

       Spencer picked a coupon off a loaf of bread as he tossed it in the cart.  “My family?” he asked.  “I miss them.  But… I can’t imagine what it would be like with them still here.”

 

       Ryan picked at a hangnail and pushed the cart along.  “You don’t hate them?”

 

       “Is that going to fix anything?” Spencer wrinkled his nose up and pulled his glasses off.  “Ah, that’s better… What’s with the third degree, dude?  You okay?”

 

       He paused and thought about himself, about the William he’d left back at a Jacksonville bus stop, and the Ryan he just might have left back in that tarp tent in the woods. 

 

       “Yeah,” he said, thinking about himself and his new home and how he wasn’t scared of who he really was anymore.  “Hey, Spencer.  Do you think…? If you want… You can call me Will, okay?”

 

       “Will?” Spencer asked.  “Instead of Ryan?”

 

       He shrugged.  “Either.  I just… I was William at home, and I’m starting to realize it’s not so different here.  Maybe I don’t have to be Ryan anymore.”

 

       Spencer shrugged again and handed him a cucumber.  “Sure thing, Will.  But I’m still calling you ‘shithead.’”

 

       Will took the vegetable and poked Spencer in the shoulder with it.  “Just don’t call me William.  I’m not my father.”  Spencer laughed.

 

       He thought back to just a few months ago when he’d been scared and starving, half-convinced he wouldn’t make it through the winter, but knowing he didn’t have any other choice.  What if his dad had left for the same reason he had?  What if he’d left because he was scared, too, and he just wanted to protect Will’s mom? Maybe he and his dad weren’t the same person, but maybe Will didn’t have to be scared of that part of his past.  Maybe he didn’t have to be scared of anything.

 

       It didn’t matter what he changed his name to.  He’d still be strong enough to take it.  He could be strong enough to handle anything, even if right then, as he idled through the cereal aisle with Spencer, he didn’t have to be.

  
  


…

  
  
  


       “Let me see,” Sarah said, crossing her arms.  “You promised. Let me see.”

 

       She was right; he had promised, and he’d worked pretty hard to keep that promise.  Brendon followed her through the hallways, through a set of doors, and into the hallway behind the auditorium.  He rucked his hoodie sleeves up over his elbows and held out his arms and didn’t look at her while she looked him over.   He didn’t look at the scars either.  He knew what they looked like-- thin, off-colored lines set into his skin, too uniform to be an accident.  Some of them inched their ways down his arm, closer to his wrist, and there were a few on his upper arm too that Sarah couldn’t see.  One of them was wider than the others and white, on the meaty part of his forearm a few inches from the elbow. 

 

       “How long have you been doing this?” she asked him.

 

       He didn’t even have to think about it. “A year next month.”

 

       “Why?” 

 

       He swallowed hard and closed his eyes because she was trying to get him to look at her now and he really didn’t want to do that.  

 

       “It helps,” he said. “I don’t know.  I’m unhappy a lot.  It helps.”

 

       She sighed, said, “Oh Brendon…” and then her arms were wrapping around him.  The hug was nice.  He hugged her back and worked at tugging his sleeves back down behind her back.  When he got the sleeves pulled successfully over his hands, he hugged her a bit tighter and squeezed his eyes shut.

 

       “You shouldn’t be doing that,” Sarah said quietly.  Brendon nodded.  Yeah, he knew that.  Of course he knew that.  Just because he felt like he deserved to be hurt didn’t mean he should go around hurting himself. 

 

       “I’ll try to stop,” he said, making her hold him even tighter.  His throat was aching, too tight, and he tried to swallow that lump away.  

 

       “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Brendon bit his lip and thought about a few nights ago with the aspirin in the bathroom.  He thought about last night, how he’d climbed up the fire escape, up to the roof, and sat on the edge until Spencer tracked him down and told him to come eat dinner.  He still wasn’t sure if he was serious about throwing himself off the roof yet.  Probably not, since he’d been up there for two hours and hadn’t done it.  Maybe eventually.  He should probably stay away from the balcony… 

 

       “Of course not,” he said.  “It’s not like that.  I won’t.”

 

       “Okay.” Her fingers curled into the fabric of his hoodie and she buried her face in his shoulder for a little while.  He ran his hands over her back and listened as her heart beat slowed a bit from how upset she’d been a few minutes ago.

 

       “We should go to lunch,” she said, and Brendon nodded.  He let Sarah hold his hand as they walked there.  It made him feel better.

 

       Ryan (who had started going by Will instead now.  Brendon wasn’t questioning it) came and found them shortly after Brendon and Sarah sat down at their usual cafeteria table.  He grinned and ruffled Brendon’s hair before plopping down on the bench next to him.  

 

       “Hey,” Will said to Sarah, grinning at her politely as he sat down and pulled his milk carton open.  “I’m Will.  Brendon’s roommate.”

 

       “Sarah,” the other responded with a suspicious raised eyebrow.  “Best friend.”

 

       “Ooh, isn’t Spencer gonna be jealous?” Will teased, digging his elbow into Brendon’s side.  Brendon nudged him back and wrinkled his nose up.

 

       “Spencer has Jon for that,” he said. 

 

       Will shrugged.  He pushed the steamed carrots around on his lunch tray and said, “How’s today going?”

 

       It was code, obvious by the way William was side-eying the hell out of him.  He didn’t mean “how was the math test” or “did you have to play dodgeball in gym class.”  He was asking if anyone had messed with Brendon yet and if he had to go kick their ass.  Or try to.  

 

       Brendon shrugged.  It was just another day.  He’d gotten pushed around a bit in the hallways, but there was nothing to report.  He also didn’t want or need William to go around getting in fights for him.  He’d get himself beat up and kicked out of school, and then Zack would kill him, and Brendon was not about to be responsible for that. 

 

       He was tired, though, and his food didn’t look all that good.  He pushed his tray towards Will, who could probably eat four servings of everything just to be full, and laid his head on the older boy's shoulder.  The school already knew he was a fag.  Why even try anymore?

 

       Will didn’t seem to mind anyways.  Brendon closed his eyes and relaxed for a while, listening as the two talked about something or other that they’d seen on TV.  It was curious how they were able to get along and talk like friends so easily.  It was also curious that William had seen whatever show they were talking about since both he and Brendon were still technically grounded.  Was William still grounded?  Brendon wasn’t sure.  He still was, probably, until he “told Zack what was going on,” which was never going to happen.  Brendon was prepared to be grounded forever. Oh well.

  
  


       They talked for a good amount of time while Brendon floated around in his head.  He’d been getting plenty of sleep, but he was still exhausted, like his arms and legs were too heavy.  His thoughts were clouded over.  He hadn’t felt very well since the aspirin incident.  His wolf felt a little tampered down as well, but that was okay.  Things being quieter helped with his headache.

 

       Because of how off he’d been feeling, Brendon was pretty surprised when a familiar scent caught his attention.  He’d know it anywhere, God, how could he not?  He also heard Will and Sarah drop silent, and he took that as his cue to open his eyes and blink up at their company.  He didn’t bother removing his head from Will’s shoulder.

 

       “What do you want?” Sarah asked before Brendon could think of anything to say.  Will must have caught onto the glare Sarah was sending Shane’s way, because he was rigid and nervous where his shoulder touched Brendon’s.  Shane, on the other hand, looked totally at ease.

 

       “Just wanted to come visit my friends,” Shane said with a mild shrug, as if it was nothing.  Brendon didn’t look up at him, taking favor in staring at the table top instead.  Nobody answered Shane, and it was tense and awful- Shane pretending nothing was wrong, Sarah shooting daggers at him, and William being all confused and mildly angry. 

 

       Shane went and made it worse when he asked, “This your new boyfriend, Brendon?” 

 

       Brendon felt William grow tenser next to him, hands turning to fists under the table like he was ready to launch himself at Shane if he had to.  Brendon wouldn’t put it past him.  He swallowed hard and shrugged, picking himself up off Will’s shoulder to properly look up at the older boy standing at the foot of their table- public enemy number one.  

 

       “So what?” Brendon asked, not saying yes, but he knew it would be interpreted that way, and he hoped William didn’t mind.  He didn’t seem to, judging by the way he wrapped his arm around Brendon’s back and scooted him over so that their thighs pressed together under the table.  He glared defiantly up at Shane (Will was really good at ‘defiant.’  Brendon needed to work on that more), and raised an eyebrow.

 

       “Who the hell are you?” he asked.  Oh great.  Oh perfect.  They were gonna fight in the middle of the cafeteria, and then they’d all get in trouble and William would get expelled and Zack would kill him.  For all Will was awesome, he was also really awesome at getting himself into fights.  Or joining them.  Or picking them.  Maybe he just liked to fight.  Maybe it was like an unconventional hobby for him. 

 

       They didn’t fight though.  Shane stared Brendon down for a few solid seconds before shrugging and turning on his heel, walking back across the cafeteria with his lunch tray in hand.  He’d probably meant to stay a while since he’d brought his tray, but nobody at the table was having it.  Sarah was still glaring after him like his presence personally insulted her, which it might, all things considered.  

 

       Brendon felt kind of guilty for that, though.  Sarah and Shane had been great friends before, old family friends for ages, and now Sarah wouldn’t even speak to him.  It was all Brendon’s fault, too.  If he hadn’t come along, they would be fine.  

 

       Sarah turned back to the table and let out a long sigh.  Will’s arm slipped from Brendon’s waist, and Brendon politely slid back into his own personal bubble instead of crowding Will’s.  Brendon watched him stab a carrot and twirl it on his fork.

 

       Sarah asked, “You okay, Bren?” 

 

       Brendon nodded.  

 

       William asked, “So, is that the ex-boyfriend then?” Brendon didn’t feel like correcting him.  He didn’t feel like explaining that, according to Shane, they’d never dated in the first place.  Brendon had just been a desperate little fag and Shane hadn’t said no.  That’s what the whole school thought, so Brendon didn’t feel the need to clarify. 

 

       “Yeah,” he said.

 

       Will wrinkled his nose up and stared after him.  They could see the lunch table occupied by senior boys clearly on the other side of the cafeteria.  Brendon chewed on his lip and followed his gaze.  

 

       “Well,” William said after a long minute.  “I’m a much cuter boyfriend than he is.”  Brendon actually cracked a smile, and Sarah laughed out loud.

  
  
  


…

  
  


       Zack came home from a monthly security meeting at the club to a seemingly empty apartment.  It seemed empty, but he could hear the tell-tale giggling of teenagers further in.  He’d learned not to trust laughter like that.  That and silence, it always meant kids were up to something.  

 

       The laughter wasn’t the most concerning part of it, though.  The concerning part was the chemical smell coming from the bathroom.  There was a strange ‘splat’ noise and then an eruption of laughter, followed by “Oh shit! Oh shit! Clean it up!”

 

       “God damn it, Brendon, be careful!”

 

       “Here, let me do yours, puppy.”

 

       “Don’t you fucking dare!” 

 

       Zack pulled open the bathroom door (the frame was still cracked.  He really needed to fix that before the inspection in a month or so) and was kind of perplexed by the scene in front of him.  

 

       They were definitely up to something, just like he knew they were.  It was like a photograph, the way all four of them turned and stared at him with wide eyes and concerned expressions.  Brendon was standing there with a brush in hand, dripping some kind of pink, gooey liquid onto William’s bare shoulder.  Jon stood next to him, leaning leisurely against the wall and holding a wad of paper towels as well as a brush of his own.  Spencer had his arms crossed and a huge pink smear decorating his cheek, matching the blush heating up his cheeks and ears.  There was a bottle of this pink substance on the sink as well as a large pink circle, probably from the splat noise he’d heard.  In the middle of all of this was William, perched on the toilet seat with a piece of pink hair falling down over his face and staining his forehead.  He had a few flecks of pink mixed in with the freckles on his nose, and he was grinning, totally guiltless.

 

       “Hey Zack!” he said, snapping everyone out of their frozen poses.  Brendon shrugged and ran his hands through Will’s wet hair, promptly dying them entirely pink.  Spencer scrubbed at his face with a piece of paper towel.

 

       “God damn it, Jon,” Spencer snapped.  “I can’t go to work like this!” 

 

       “Oh chill out.  You’re an intern.  Who cares what you look like?” Jon argued back, pulling Spencer close by the back of the neck and dabbing at his face with a paper towel.  

 

       “Knock it off.”

 

       “Make me!” 

 

       Spencer shoved him, making Jon stumble back into Brendon, who fell into William with a yelp and got a stamp of the boy’s hair imprinted on the front of his ratty band camp t-shirt.  Brendon laughed, as did William and Jon, but Spencer muttered, “Fucking asshole,” and shoved at Jon again, this time with less heat behind it.  

 

       Jon grinned and smacked a gross kiss onto Spencer’s cheek, causing Spencer to turn entirely the color of the hair dye on his cheek and mutter a few more obscenities under his breath.  Jon looked pretty fucking pleased with himself.

 

       Zack just shook his head and looked back at Will, who was beaming.  Kids were weird.

 

       He hesitated, kind of afraid to ask. “Why are you dying yourself pink?” 

 

       William just smirked some more.  “I wanna be as popular as Brendon,” he said, and Brendon gave this tiny little grin and ducked his head so his eyes were hidden behind his hair, which was getting seriously long and probably needed to be trimmed.  God forbid they try doing that themselves in the bathroom as well.  He’d probably end up looking like Spock.

 

       “Uh huh…” Zack said, backing out of the bathroom and admitting defeat.  “Okay.  Have fun with that.” 

 

       “I’ll bleach the sink later!” Brendon hollered after him, and Zack didn’t really want that kid playing with bleach, but alright.  Zack went off to his room and called up Jenny.  At least he’d have something fun to tell her about now.

 

       A short while later, Zack heard Jon whine, “Dude, you got dye on my camera!”

 

       Spencer’s voice responded with a curt, “Good.”

  
       Zack had to wonder how long his bathroom was going to be pink, and also how he’d ended up with the strangest boys ever living in his apartment.  Traced back, this was all essentially Jon’s fault, so he sort of deserved to have pink hair dye on his camera.  He told this to Jenny, who chuckled and just said, “Boys will be boys.” 


	7. The End of All Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just read it

The important question one might ask at this moment was why was Brendon holding two halves of a pillow and why were there feathers all over the place.  Will felt one tickling his forehead from his hair and swiped it away, still in awe about what he’d just done.  Brendon, on the other hand, was laughing hysterically. 

 

“You-,” he gasped out.  “You-you weren’t supposed to hit it  _ that _ hard!” he shrieked, and then laughed crazily, folding over and clutching the ruined cushion to his stomach.  Will was laughing, too.  

 

“Fuck,” he said out loud.  “I’m gonna have to buy you a new fucking pillow.” 

 

Brendon laughed even harder. The two of them were about to be rolling on the ground laughing, and in the background was still playing the audio from a YouTube video they had going on Spencer’s computer, which was propped up high on their dresser for safety.  

 

“You fucking dick!” Brendon exclaimed, still laughing decently hard as he chucked half of the pillow at Will.  Will let it bounce off his shoulder and smiled wide.  

 

“Them’s fightin’ words,” he said, kicking at Brendon’s hip in a pushing motion the karate instructor they were watching on the internet had shown them.  Brendon laughed and nearly fell over.  

 

They’d been practicing for a while.  Will figured that if Brendon really wanted to be able to fight people off at school, which is something he should want, after all.  He shouldn’t take so much shit from those guys.  Anyways, if he really wanted to be able to fight off those assholes, he’d need to know how to actually fight.  Will had learned to fight while living on the streets, ‘cause when you’re out on your own you don’t really have a choice.  But his methods were like a kamikaze fighter, only less effective.  He’d learned to throw yourself at them screaming and hope you could land a few hits that mattered.  

 

Brendon really wasn’t mean enough, or strong enough, for that to work.  So Will borrowed Spencer’s computer and looked up karate instruction videos on the internet.  He’d dragged Brendon out of bed to learn along, and he was pretty proud of himself to have Brendon laughing and actually having fun for once.  

 

They’d spent a while just punching and kicking each other’s hands until they started to get sore, and that’s when Brendon held up the pillow (no pillowcase, cause they were classy like that) and said, “Go for it!”  So Will had gone for it, and he hadn’t accounted for the extra strength he had as a werewolf, which was why there were feathers and a destroyed pillow littering the floor or their bedroom.  

 

They got a little caught up in the moment, play boxing and tagging each other in the chests, cuffing each other’s ears.  Brendon held an arm up, and William really only meant to hit his arm.  Brendon pulled it back too fast, though, and that’s when Will’s knuckles connected solidly with Brendon’s nose. 

 

He gasped as soon as it happened, and Brendon’s jumped back with a shout.  

 

“Ow,  _ fuck _ !” he yelled, covering his face with both hands.

 

“Oh my God,” Will responded from a lack of anything better to say.

 

“Ow!” Brendon said again.  Bright red blood ran down his chin under his hands and dripped onto his t-shirt. 

 

“Dude, you’re bleeding!” 

 

Then the door was opening and Jon was poking his head in.  “Are you okay?” he asked, then said, “Oh  _ shit _ .” 

 

Spencer joined him in the doorway to ask, “What happened?” He got a good look at the situation and was in Will’s face almost immediately.  “What did you do to him?”

 

“It was an accident!” William yelled back defensively, because he really didn’t appreciate Spencer being that loud or that close to him at the moment.  He hadn’t forgotten that time Spencer practically tried to  _ eat  _ him.  Or what had happened outside with the hunters just two months ago.  In the background, the YouTube guy chirped, “You, too, can be a karate master!”

 

“What the hell is the matter with you!?” Spencer yelled, shoving Will back by his shoulders.  “You do  _ not _ hit him! Don’t you  _ dare!” _

 

“I’m sorry!” Will yelled, shoving back because he didn’t take anyone’s shit.  Ever.  “It was a fucking accident!” 

 

“Whoa,” Zack said, moving between the two of him them and holding Spencer back with a look and a hand in the middle of his chest.  “Cool it. Both of you.” 

 

Spencer bared his teeth and growled, but he was staring down at the floor and not at Zack, so perhaps it was okay.  Will just crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw.  There was quiet for a while, and then Jon said, “C’mon, Bren.  Let’s get you some ice,” as he lead him out of the room.  Zack shot both of them another stern look before following, and they stayed there for a moment, standing only a few feet away from each other and not breaking eye contact. 

 

Will eventually glanced down and said, “I would never hurt him on purpose.” 

 

He flitted his eyes up to see Spencer’s solid gold glare burning into him.  “You’d better not,” he growled, then turned and stalked out.  Will growled weakly after he left and went over to their dresser to turn off the stupid karate video.  It had been a dumb idea anyways. 

  
  


…

  
  


It had to be him, Brendon realized as he stood up on the bridge and looked over the cars flying below him. That morning in geometry, the teacher had talked about common denominators for an algebra review. Something about the PSAT.  But no, not the point. The point was that for once in his life math was coming in handy. 

 

The teacher said that when dealing with complex fractions you get a common denominator. Figure out what everything has in common and then get rid of it. That's how math worked. It made sense. 

 

It was a revelation, honestly. Who ever said math didn't relate to real life? 

 

You find what's in common and get rid of it. 

 

Brendon had just gotten his breathing back to normal.  William's hair was certainly doing what he wanted; he got all sorts of attention at school for it.  Brendon wasn't sure what his purpose was with that, if he was trying to draw attention away from Brendon, or if he was actually that much of a glutton for punishment that he wanted to give the other kids a reason to kick his ass.  Either way, Will had pink hair, and it would have been an awesome distraction from Brendon if they didn't spend almost all of their free time together at school. 

 

You see, you can't draw attention away from someone and also hang around to defend them at the same time. William probably didn't think that far ahead. It was a retrospect thing. Oh well.

 

Retrospect was bullshit. Of course you realized things after the disaster blew through. How did that help anything? It didn't. It just gave you a reason to feel bad. 

 

Oh well.  In retrospect, Brendon hadn't really tried hard enough at offing himself. Of course he'd fuck it up if he had that much control over the situation. He was the common denominator. That's what he'd figured out in math class.  

 

He needed something bigger. Something that he couldn't take back, couldn't throw up, wouldn't have a chance to fight. 

 

The truth was, he was kind of a problem child. He'd heard a song about it, Simple Plan or something emo like that. The kind of music that made Spencer get worried faces about when he overheard it leaking from Brendon’s headphones. 

 

But anyways, that’s what he was: a problem child, a fuck up. He was always too loud or too upset or too  _ Brendon _ , and he always made the wrong decisions, and he always made people upset. His parents, for example.  They hated him. They kicked him out. His dad had... Brendon wasn't thinking about his dad, except that he really was. He just didn't want to put words to what had happened. He'd deserved it anyways. He didn't dare call it abuse when he deserved it. 

 

He thought about the look on Spencer's face that one time when he said, "did they hit you?" He'd used the word abuse before and no, Spencer was wrong. Just because Spencer's family was different didn't mean it was better, and besides, Spencer's family left him behind, too, so what room did Spencer have to talk anyways? 

 

Brendon felt really mean. Really mean and really twitchy, but also a lot less tired, which was nice. He couldn't tell if this was an improvement. His skin itched like the moon was out, but it wasn't. It always drove his dad crazy when he got fidgety like this. Always made him scowl or get that disappointed face or eventually yell if the first two tactics didn't work. 

 

He pissed Zack off, too. He'd been too snappy, too tense, and Zack had asked a simple question. ‘Hey Brendon, how was school?’ But Brendon fucked it up, because school was awful, always fucking awful and when was Zack going to give up and just leave him alone about it? It was shit. It wasn't going to get any fucking better, and Brendon didn't want to fucking talk about it. 

 

He didn't fight with Zack; that was Spencer's job. Spencer was the headstrong one, but today it was Brendon's turn and by the time he'd run out of the apartment Zack was practically growling and probably ready to throttle him. It just reinforced what Brendon already knew. 

 

Why were his parents always mad? Brendon. What made Spencer and Jon get those worried looks on their faces? Brendon. Well, Jon got weird looks on his face because of Spencer a lot, too, but a lot of them were Brendon's fault. What made William get all cranky and quiet? Brendon. What made his teachers get worried or irritated? Brendon. Who were the assholes at school tormenting? Brendon. What made Zack all mad? Brendon. 

 

Common denominator. It made sense as far as Brendon was concerned. You take the common denominator and get rid of it, and then you can solve the problem. 

 

The highway underneath him was the only road out of this town and over to the bigger one. Between winding mountains and cut off cliffs, there was nowhere for cars to go but straight. A hiking path stretched across the road via footbridge, and that's where Brendon was, staring down at the traffic going 65 miles per hour minimum. 

 

It takes a car moving forty-five miles per hour the length of a football field to stop. Well how about a semi?  

 

His stupid advanced metabolism had ruined it last time. Thrown him out of bed and had him convulsing until all of the poison was out of his system.  He doubted even his wolf powers could save him if he fell thirty feet and cracked his head on the cement, then got pummeled by eighteen wheels for emphasis. It was violent but necessary. He'd be nothing but a grease spot. They'd stick a little white cross on the median between the lanes. 

 

Ironic. As if God gave a flying fuck about him. As if Brendon of all people deserved a cross at his death place. As if anyone wanted to remember him. 

 

He could do it. There was substantial traffic. It could be easy to climb, easy to fall, and then he'd be dead. About fucking time. 

 

Common denominator. 

 

He planted a foot on the railing and pushed up. One foot, two foot, swing your legs over and push off. He could do it. He hesitated there and thought. He could do it. It would be easy. 

 

He just wanted some fucking rest. He couldn't rest. He was shaking out of his skin. He'd been exhausted for weeks, fucking weeks, and now he was a live wire. 

 

It would be so easy. Like that children's book. One foot, two foot, red blood spot, blue face... black hoodie?

 

He turned his head as a figure moved closer to him, and it took Brendon a minute to place it. Go figure. Bathroom sandwich kid, all the way out here. Maybe Brendon had a stalker, but no. If anyone was stalking anyone, Brendon was stalking the bathroom kid. That didn't make any sense. Brendon might have been a little bit crazy. He may not have gotten enough sleep. When did he sleep last? Tuesday? Was it Wednesday or Thursday? No, Friday. No, Thursday. Right. He had school tomorrow. 

 

What the hell was this kid doing out here at the edge of town on a school night? Or at all, for that matter? 

 

Was he here to throw himself off the bridge, too? Oh fuck, Brendon was gonna throw himself off the bridge. 

 

The boy looked like he was in a hurry, skinny legs moving fast and hands clutching tight to his backpack strap. Brendon wondered where he was going. He was so focused on the ground that Brendon was sure he wouldn't even notice someone else was there. He'd just continue on his way, speed walking to wherever. What was he up to? 

 

This kid was such an enigma. That was a cool word. Jon had taught it to him. He'd been pretty high at the time. Jon, not Brendon. Brendon was trying to stay out of trouble, thank you, but Zack seemed to have given up on keeping Jon away from weed. It was kind of funny. 

 

Funny. The kid was looking at him funny, standing there clutching his bag, the toes of his ratty black sneakers touching, and his eyes wide and questioning under the hair that covered a good portion of his face. He didn't say anything, but he looked Brendon over, eyes flickering from all of him to his face to his leg braced on the railing to his face again. 

 

Brendon knew how this looked. It looked exactly like how it was, but this kid was scared. Brendon could hear his heart hammering away in his chest, sweat prickling on his skin in the chilly February wind. Brendon wanted to scream at him. 

 

This kid didn't get to be scared. This kid didn't get to smell like he was about to cry.  If anyone deserved to be scared and crying and trembling like that, it was Brendon, and fuck. He felt his hands shake against the railing and stepped back, both feet on the ground away from the edge, hands shoved in his pockets. There was a lump in his throat and tears welling in his eyes.

 

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair. This stranger didn't get to be upset for Brendon, didn't get to stare at him and interrupt the only thing that Brendon fucking wanted in this world. This wasn't fucking fair. 

 

He felt like such an idiot, standing there crying like that in front of a stranger who probably thought he was some kind of basket case. Some kind of crazy person who wanted to throw themself himself onto the interstate. 

 

He was right, too. Brendon was totally losing his mind. 

 

Before he could embarrass himself more, because he felt his chest getting tight and his throat burning and his eyes aching the way they always did when a panic attack was coming on. He'd looked into it. Panic attacks. At least now he knew why sometimes he couldn't breathe. 

 

He couldn't breathe. He had to get out of there. 

 

It wasn't hard to shove past the kid on the narrow bridge and disappear into the woods, sprinting, shoes smacking the asphalt and then soaking into the spongy ground of the forest floor. He ran, legs tired and achy until he couldn't anymore, and then he let himself fall to his knees, curl up and close his eyes and tug at his hair and wait for everything to stop suffocating him. 

 

Breathe, in and out in and out inandoutinandoutinandoutinandout, stop, breathe, count to three, his mom had always said. Stop, breathe, count to three. Stop, breathe... 

  
  


…

  
  


So Spencer’s job kind of sucked.  He didn’t mean to be melodramatic, but he could have filled spreadsheets (and I’m talking nine columns by forty-seven rows, entirely filled excel spreadsheets) with reasons why his job was the worst job on earth.  For one, he was getting paid below minimum wage, because it was just an internship and apparently calling it that kept the higher ups in suits from dropping too much money on stupid teenagers that might not stick around. 

 

For another, his manager totally treated them all like they were incompetent.  And sure, Spencer was technically a stupid teenager, but he was also technically a stupid adult and his manager was just a dick.  If you couldn’t arrange a solar eclipse to darken your day, there was always Dobbenhauer.  

 

Maybe he was an asshole because he had the worst last name ever.  He wouldn’t tell them his first name; nobody in the whole office knew it, Spencer was pretty sure.  He was just Mr. Dobbenhauer. 

 

Once Spencer had called him ‘Mr. D,’ and Dobbenhauer had yelled at him for twenty minutes, then yelled for an additional five about wasting valuable work time.   Spencer usually wasn’t scared of adults, but Dobbenhauer was definitely an exception.  He would have done just about anything to avoid talking to that cranky old man.

 

Thankfully, the ancient douche bag was otherwise occupied that day with a new slew of interns to pick on.  Spencer had been there long enough that he no longer needed constant babysitting.  A few more months, he figured, and he’d be like Elliot-- the twenty-two year old employee who had stealth texting down to a motherfucking art.  He’d seen the guy drop his cellphone into a cup of coffee once mere seconds before Dobbenhauer poked his head over the top of his cubicle to spy on him.  Elliot had looked up calmly, taken a sip of the coffee, and commented on the weather.  When the coast was clear, he’d fished his phone out and shook it around a bit.  He looked at Spencer and said “Waterproof case,” with a smug smirk on his face, then went right back to texting.

 

A motherfucking artist.  Spencer secretly admired him.

 

He was also secretly jealous of him, because Elliot always had coffee, and Spencer was just about falling asleep at his desk.  There was nothing exciting about typing and retyping documents.  Nothing at all.  And if Elliot wasn’t actually staring him down and sipping his coffee tauntingly slow, then Spencer had to be exhausted enough to be imagining things. 

 

“I hate this place,” Spencer murmured under his breath and out of earshot of anyone important while he punched at the backspace key and started correcting some other intern’s mistakes.  ‘Deduction’ he retyped, and sent out a silent prayer for coffee.  ‘Correspondence.’ Coffee.  ‘Liabilities’ he typed, and then retyped, and then he must have been dreaming because he could have sworn he’d heard Jon’s voice saying-

 

“Spencer! Hey, there you are.  This campus is so confusing.” 

 

It had to be a dream, but Spencer threw his doubts out the window when he had Jon leaning over the top of his desk and holding down a steaming Starbucks cup.  It smelled like heaven.  He grabbed it instantly and took a swig, not even caring that he burned his tongue, because this had to be some kind of miracle.

 

“What are you doing here?” He he asked, taking another swig.  It ached against his throat, which was parched.  He was so fucking tired.  He might have been getting sick.  

 

Jon shrugged and said, “Just thought I’d stop by and see you at work.  Is that so bad?”

 

Where Spencer worked was nearly a forty-five minute drive away from the Starbucks that Jon worked at.  Spencer wondered for a moment how he’d managed to keep the drinks hot that long, but he had more pressing concerns at the moment. 

 

“Thanks,” he said, and then, “You need to leave.”

 

Jon looked reasonably taken aback.  “Excuse me?” he asked.  

 

Right on schedule, Dobbenhauer appeared behind Jon.  His eyes were beady under that God awful toupee he wore every day.  It didn’t even match the hair on the sides of his head.  Spencer wondered who he thought he was fooling anyways.  

 

“Mr. Smith,” he said, and Jon jumped slightly, apparently caught off guard.  For a werewolf, he didn’t have the greatest sense of mindfulness.  “Are you dying in the hospital?” Dobbenhauer asked.

 

Spencer set his coffee down out of sight and shook his head. “No, sir.”

 

“Then you don’t get any visitors.”  The old dinosaur of a man turned to Jon next and said, “Young man, this is a place of work.  You need to leave.”   Spencer just hoped Jon didn’t make a big deal of this.  He was usually laid back, but he knew that Jon could be a total shithead when the moment struck him.  

 

Fortunately, this time around he simply grinned and nodded.  “Of course,” he said.  “I’m sorry to interrupt.”  

 

He looked at Spencer and winked, so quick it might not have even happened, and then turned and left.  Spencer watched the office door swing shut behind him and then turned his attention back to the scowling man in front of him.  

 

“This is going in your file,” Dobbenhauer said before leaving.  Spencer hadn’t known he had a file.  Was having a file a good thing or a bad thing?  It was probably bad now that there was something in it, but maybe it meant they planned to keep him around.  If they had a file on him and all.  

 

“Damn,” Elliot said next to him, and Spencer turned to look across the aisle and see his coworker brushing rice from the take-out container on his desk off of his cellphone.  “That was a close one.  How did you get Starbucks to deliver?” 

 

Spencer rolled his eyes and went back to his computer screen.  ‘General ledger’ he typed, then took a sip of his coffee and grinned.  He’d find a good way to thank Jon for this later. 

  
  
  


…

  
  


“Hey, B,” Jon said. “Where you been?” 

 

Brendon shrugged and toed his shoes off as he shut the door and looked around the apartment.  Jon and Spencer were on the couch.  Well, kind of.  Jon was there, sprawled out with one hand on his cellphone and the other on Spencer’s head.  Spencer-- point of interest-- was a wolf, large and spilling over the edge of the couch with massive furry paws and a slowly wagging tail.  His eyes, dark gold instead of their piercing human blue, stayed steadily on him the whole time, interrupted occasionally only by slow, deliberate blinks. 

 

Brendon patted Spencer’s head as he passed and didn’t ask.  Jon told him anyways.  Brendon figured he would. 

 

“More training,” Jon said.  “He’s doing fine not shifting over, but now we gotta work and at him keeping his head this way, too.”

 

Brendon nodded.  That made sense.  Spencer had been a little snappy on the full moon lately, stalking around a bit and growling at things more than usual.  Brendon had thought that was just because he was embarrassed about how different he looked now.  He got weird about that sometimes.  But Zack had mentioned it before; Spencer wasn’t as human as Brendon was.  Maybe things were different for him when he shifted over. 

 

Not too different, though, because Spencer was sniffing at Jon and pressing his (probably) cold nose against Jon’s cheek, making the latter giggle and push at him.  That was pretty normal behavior.  Zack was in his room, the sound of his voice audible.  He was probably talking with Jenny.  He’d been pretty down lately about her being back in Pennsylvania.  It was cute how bad he had it for her.  The shower was going.  That had to be Will.  At least his room was empty then. 

 

Brendon shuffled off that way and curled up in bed.  Jon and Spencer were so happy right now, and everyone was acting like things were normal.  Brendon didn’t feel normal.  He felt like he needed to throw up. How could nobody notice?  Maybe they did notice.  Maybe they just didn’t care.

 

Or maybe it was all in Brendon’s head.  He’d been considering it for a while now.  In health class they’d talked about how people can be depressed and all that.  Maybe he was depressed or just going crazy.  Brendon wasn’t honestly sure, but he felt like he couldn’t talk about it without coming off as whiny.  

 

It was probably all in his head anyways. 

 

When Will came in, wearing a towel and smelling like soap after his shower, Brendon pretended to be asleep.  Will didn’t mention it, even though Brendon knew he could tell by his breathing that he was faking it.  Will was cool like that.  Brendon kept his eyes closed while he tugged on clothes, even though Will was never weird about it like the guys in the locker room at school were.  It was just polite.  After a while, Brendon heard him plop down on his bed, and shortly after, the ruffling of turning book pages and pencil scratches. 

 

“High school is bullshit,” William said out loud, maybe to Brendon, maybe to himself.  Brendon nodded anyways, burrowing deeper into his pillow and humming an affirmative.

  
  


…

 

It’s around two in the morning and everyone was asleep.  Brendon fell asleep earlier that night, but he’d woken up around midnight when Zack had come home.  He wondered why he was home early, and just laid in bed listening to Zack bustle around the apartment until he went to bed and everything was silent again.  

 

Brendon felt bad, but he wasn’t sure what was driving it.  Zack was asleep, but he was wide awake.  His brain was so tired, but his eyes wouldn’t stay shut.  His heart felt all pound-y.  

 

He tossed and turned a bit in bed, rolling over and hoping that Will was still awake.  He wasn’t, though.  He was fast asleep, mouth hanging open, making occasional quiet noises.  He rolled and stared up at the ceiling, but it was unnerving staring into the dark like that.  It made him feel dizzy and nervous.  

 

Before Brendon even knew what he was doing, he was rolling out of bed and stumbling his way to the bathroom.  He flicked the light and closed the door behind him, opening the bottom drawer and fishing out a familiar blade he’d broken out of a plastic disposable razor.  He shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.  He knew he promised Sarah, and he knew Spencer would be really upset if he knew, but Brendon pushed that out of his mind and held his breath as he pressed the corner of the blade into his skin. 

 

Five burning marks decorated his arm.  He watched blood pool for a moment, but when it threatened to spill over his arm and onto the floor, he grabbed a wad of toilet paper and pressed it tight to his skin.  Brendon hissed in a breath and closed his eyes.  

 

“Stupid,” he muttered.  “You’re so fucking stupid…” 

 

It took a while for the blood to stop flowing, but when it did, he was almost half asleep.  He put a couple of band-aides where it was absolutely necessary, and tugged on a sweatshirt before crawling into bed and curling up tight.

  
  
  


...

 

After Will’s self-inflicted makeover and a lot of tormenting in the high school cafeteria, Sarah had the genius idea to start eating lunch in the stairwell by the auditorium.  It was nice and quiet, not too echoey, and nobody but an occasional stray theatre nerd ever bothered to wander their way.  They could basically do whatever they wanted, which usually entailed complaining about their sandwiches or trying to toss grapes up onto the windowsill thirty feet above their heads.  It wasn’t much, but it was all they wanted, and considering  _ William’s _ tormentors were the reason they were hiding out there, and not Brendon’s, Brendon didn’t even have to feel bad about causing his friend’s social isolation.

 

It was a win-win honestly.  Bullies weren’t making him feel bad, and Brendon wasn’t making himself feel bad either. 

Brendon tuned back into the conversation to see what Sarah and Will were laughing so hard about. 

 

“You couldn’t have hit him that hard,” Sarah reasoned, and one of the reasons she was Brendon’s like third favorite person after Lady Gaga and the Hulk (who was super under-appreciated in his opinion) was that Sarah was usually willing to take his side, even if it didn’t matter. “He doesn’t even have a bruise!” Sarah reasoned.  

 

Brendon glanced over when he heard Will’s heart skip a beat all funny, but he was a good enough liar that his smile didn’t slip at all.  Sometimes they got painfully close to forgetting Sarah couldn’t find out they were werewolves.  One of these days she was going to figure it out; Brendon just hoped that day wasn’t today.

 

“I’ll show you hitting hard,” Will shot back instantly.  Brendon laughed. 

 

“That’s how you get all the girls, Key.  Just threaten to punch them,” he said.

 

“That’s very Slim Shady of you,” Sarah added.  

 

William rolled his eyes dramatically and said, “It’s called  _ hitting on _ them.”

 

It was a pretty lame pun, but they both laughed again anyways.

 

Brendon heard Will’s phone buzz and watched him fish it out of his pocket.  The pants he was wearing were pretty baggy on him and rolled up at the ankles.  Brendon wondered if he’d stolen a pair of Spencer’s that morning.  It would make sense.  Spencer was the only one of them who actually did laundry every once in a blue moon.  The only reason Brendon’s clothes got clean was because Spencer would exclaim that he “couldn’t take it anymore!” and do it himself.  He was on strike, though, or at least that’s what he had told them.  Apparently Will was fighting back against the laundry strike by stealing Spencer’s pants.  It was kind of genius.  

 

“I gotta go,” Will said, tapping back a quick reply and dropping the phone in his pocket.  “See ya, karate master,” he said to Brendon, then ruffled Sarah’s hair and said, “I’ll come around to punch you later.” 

 

Sarah wrinkled her nose up and smoothed her hair back into place.  “I punched your mom last night,” she said.  Will snorted a laugh and jogged off down the stairs.  

 

The door at the bottom slammed shut behind him and Sarah said, “Karate master, huh?” 

 

Brendon grinned and shoved at her shoulder.  “You fuckin’ know it,” he said.  

 

“Oh yeah? Fight me, bruh.” She grinned and shoved him back, and they got into a mild spiff, shoving at each other and slapping each other’s hands.  Brendon managed to smack Sarah on the back of the head. 

 

“Oh you’re gonna get it now, bitch,” she threatened playfully.  

 

Brendon made a mad dash up the stairs past her to get away, but he was laughing pretty hard and wasn’t very fast when he was breathless.  They were smart enough to sit near the bottom of the flight rather than the top.  With the amount of rough-housing that went on, it wouldn’t be surprising if one of them fell down the stairs and broke something, and then they wouldn’t be allowed to eat lunch there anymore.  She grabbed at him, probably to pull him back down, but her fingers missed the target of his wrist and curled into the cuff of the oversized sweatshirt he was wearing (Brendon was also wearing a clothing item of Spencer’s, but this was just out of habit, not some kind of rebellious statement). She yanked on the fabric, pulling the sleeve all the way back past his elbow, and it didn’t even register in Brendon’s mind until Sarah went still.

 

Brendon stopped fighting to get away and glanced down at his arm to see what she was seeing.  Oh shit.  Oh  _ shit _ .  He tugged his arm back to himself and pushed the sleeve down all the way over his hand, curled his fist tight around the fabric as if he could hide what she’d already seen.  Five bright lines on his arm, still scabbing over because he’d cut pretty deep.  He kept fiddling with the sweater and didn’t look to meet her eye, even though she was staring at him pretty intently.

 

“Brendon, what was that?” she asked, voice tight in the silent air around them.  He didn’t answer her.  He didn’t have an excuse.  “I thought you quit.” 

 

Her voice was harsh and accusing, and Brendon didn’t want to listen to it.  He’d been trying not to think about how badly he’d let her down.  

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he responded, keeping his eyes low and walking past her down the stairs to ball up his paper bag from lunch.  

 

“Brendon,” she said, voice getting tenser the more this went on, and Brendon wondered what the hell happened.  They’d been laughing and playing a minute before, and now everything was bad and awful again.  

 

“I have to go,” he mumbled, heading down the stairs William had jumped down happily a few minutes before.  Lunch was almost over anyways.  He’d go throw his trash away and grab his books and just hang around his next class until the teacher came and unlocked the door.  

 

He was almost as the bottom of the stairs when he heard her say, at a normal volume, not calling after him or anything, “You promised me.” 

 

He grimaced and froze, trying to think of some way to explain, or to apologize and make everything better, but he didn’t know what to say.  

 

The bell rang overhead, clanging painfully loud in the stairwell.  He swallowed down the lump in his throat and repeated, “I have to go.”  He let the door close stiffly behind him and spent the walk to class trying to catch his breath.

  
  


….

 

“Dude, what’s your deal?” Will asked him in health class, leaning across the aisle slightly and narrowing his eyes at Brendon.  Brendon swallowed hard and shook his head, tugging a bit at his hoodie sleeves.  

 

“Nothing,” he whispered back.

 

“Boys in the back!” their teacher snapped.  Brendon still hadn’t bothered to learn the guy’s name.  It was probably too late in the semester to ask him without coming off as rude.  

 

Brendon pressed his lips tight together and ignored the looks Will kept shooting him.  At least their seats had been moved around.  Maybe this teacher wasn’t as bad as he seemed if he was smart enough to get Brendon and Will out of the front rows, no longer target practice for whatever their classmates were throwing at the back of their heads. 

 

Eventually Will gave up and rolled his eyes.  After class he said, “I’m meeting up with a guy from my music class after school so I asked Sarah to walk home with you.” 

 

Brendon turned to glare at him for several different reasons.  For one, he didn’t need a fucking babysitter to get home safe.  Joey and his friends hadn’t jumped Brendon since the egg incident.  He could take care of himself, thank you very much.  He wasn’t some little kid. 

 

For another, when did Will and Sarah start casually texting each other?  When did Brendon’s close friends become close friends with each other?  What if they just decided they don’t need him anymore? 

 

Lastly, and most importantly, he really, really didn’t want to walk home with Sarah.  She was all mad at him, and disappointed in him, and she was going to want to talk about it, and he was probably going to cry.  Brendon was making up a plan to just grab his books and sprint out the school doors and all the way home, but Sarah was waiting at his locker when he got there.  Will punched him in the shoulder and wandered off down the hall, so Brendon didn’t have a lot of choices left.  He rubbed his arm and walked out of school with Sarah. 

 

To his surprise, she didn’t start yelling as soon as they made it outside.  In fact, they walked off the school grounds and a block down the street before she even said anything.  He was hoping they could walk silently the entire way to the apartment, but his luck could only last so long.  As soon as she spoke, Brendon wanted to throw up.

 

“You promised me you’d stop,” she said, voice less accusing than it had been earlier.  She sounded sadder.  He wasn’t sure which was worse.

 

“I’m sorry,” he responded.  His throat hurt.  It must have gotten hot out- maybe it was turning into spring- because he felt sweaty and had to unzip the front of his hoodie.  He considered pushing up his sleeves too, but he didn’t want to push it.  He didn’t want her to see again.  Somehow that would make everything worse, he was sure of it.

 

When she didn’t say anything else, Brendon risked a glance at her and chewed on his bottom lip.  “Are you mad?” he asked.  She smelled mad, but also sad and a mix of other things Brendon couldn’t figure out.  

 

She sighed, her breath coming out in a white puff.  “I don’t know, Brendon,” she uttered.  “I… I’m disappointed.” 

 

Yeah, that was worse than mad.  Definitely worse than mad.  He ground his teeth together and looked away, down at the slush filled gutter. 

 

“Well I don’t see why you care so much,” he grumbled.  Brendon felt the energy shift immediately, and he stopped walking when she did, a pace or two ahead of her. 

 

“Excuse me?” she said, voice incredibly flat and dangerous.  “You don’t see why I  _ care _ ?” 

 

He glared down at her knees and shrugged, not ready to look her in the eyes.  He saw her shaking her head in his peripheral vision.  

 

“After all the shit you’ve… Is it so hard to believe that I care about you!?  What the hell, Brendon?” she demanded.   Brendon clenched his fists around the sleeves of Spencer’s hoodie and turned on heel to storm back down the sidewalk, but Sarah wasn’t about to let him get away that easily.  She caught up and kept pace, talking the whole time. 

 

“I’m worried about you,” she fretted.  “You’ve been acting so weird, and I know things are bad at school, but you won’t even talk about it! What do you want me to do? Just sit back and let you slit your wrists open?”

 

“Yes,” he growled out, careful to sound more human than wolf when he did so.  “That’s exactly what you should do.”

 

“Not a chance in hell, Urie.  What is going on in your head that you think this is okay?” 

 

“I don’t know!” Brendon said, voice just below a yell.  “I don’t know what’s going on in my head!  I’m crazy or something, okay? A fucking basket case.  You shouldn’t even waste your time on me.” 

 

“Well too bad,” she snapped back.  “Because you’re stuck with me.” They stood there glaring at each other until Sarah muttered, “Fucking Christ… come here,” and pulled him into a hug.  He instinctively wrapped his arms around her and tucked his head in close to her neck, breathed in her scent and listened to her heart beat as she curled her fingers in the hair on the back of his head.  

 

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she insisted.  

 

“That’s the point…”

 

“No, I mean  _ seriously hurt yourself,  _ Brendon.” 

 

“That’s. The. Point,” he repeated solidly. 

 

She pushed him back gently and kept him an arm’s length away, both hands holding firmly to his shoulders.  “You want that?” she asked, never one to skirt around a subject.  Her voice sounded choked.  She smelled like she was about to cry.  

 

He couldn’t meet her eyes as he mumbled, “I think about it a lot… It would be easier.” 

 

“Things are going to get better, Bren…,” she said.  There were tears rolling down her cheek and Brendon felt his own eyes welling up.  He’d never really confessed it out-loud before, that he wanted to kill himself.  It sounded scary out in the open like that.

 

“I doubt it…” 

 

“You’re going to take it too far,” she whispered. 

 

Brendon swallowed hard and looked away.  “I’m already broken,” he said.  “How much worse can it get?”  He felt her fingers curl tighter around his shoulders and sniffled.  “I should get upstairs,” he said, nodding his head at the apartment building.  “I’m still grounded.  Zack will be wondering where I am.”

 

She looked at him for a moment before letting him go.  “Okay,” she said.  “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, right B?”

 

Brendon nodded and took a few steps towards the front door.  

 

“Hey.  Brendon!” she called after him, and he paused.  “Right?”

 

Brendon met her eye and nodded slowly.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.  Promise.”

 

She sighed quietly.  “Okay.  Love you, bud.”  

 

Brendon shot her a half grin before pushing the door open and heading inside. 

  
  


…

  
  


Brendon was pretty sure that he saw Sarah in the hallway that morning before classes started, but she didn’t show up for lunch or for any of the classes they had together.  During lunch Will showed up late and immediately pulled out his cellphone.

 

“What does Zack want?” he mumbled to himself.  Brendon raised an eyebrow and looked over at him, waiting for a continuation, but William just frowned more and didn’t say anything.  Brendon sighed loudly. 

 

At least Sarah wasn’t there, he supposed.  Brendon kind of wished she was, because school wasn’t great when she wasn’t there.  On the other hand it would probably be really awkward to have to face her after yesterday.  He didn’t know what he would say, or how he would apologize.  He felt really stupid, telling her that he wanted to kill himself and all that.  He felt really stupid about cutting himself, too.  Some days were really bad, but then other days were better, and whenever he had a good day it made him feel incredibly guilty about the bad days. 

 

Brendon ghosted through the rest of the day on autopilot, and Sarah still hadn’t shown up when the final bell rang.  He shuffled his way from class to his locker, then from his locker to Will’s so that they could walk home together.  Another boy- or maybe a girl, Brendon couldn’t tell with the kid’s long hair- slapped Will on the back and sauntered off down the hallway.  When Brendon approached him and leaned against the lockers by Will’s, the older boy didn’t bother looking at him as he said, “Zack wants us straight home for something.  You got your books?”

 

He nodded and played with the strap on his bag.  “What does he want?” he asked, the same question he’d asked earlier during lunch. 

 

“Who knows, man,” Will said.  He slammed his locker shut and slung his arm around Brendon’s shoulders, pulling him off down the hallway towards the front doors.  “You know how Zack is.”

 

“True,” he said. 

 

It was a weird walk home, too cold and too quiet.  Will kept glancing over at him and sending him these strange looks that Brendon couldn’t get a read on.  He didn’t want to think about it too much, so he talked instead. 

 

“I wonder where Sarah was today,” he said.  “Did she tell you anything?” 

 

If she’d told Will about their conversation the day before, Brendon was probably going to throw himself into traffic.  Brendon simply couldn’t have that happen.  It would be awful. 

 

“Nah,” Will said, and then, “Would I look good with a nose ring?” 

 

Brendon frowned and studied his face for a moment before nodding.  “Yeah,” he finally said.  “That’d be pretty punk.”

 

William grinned. “Maybe I’ll do it when I turn eighteen,” he said.

 

“You could rock an eyebrow bar thing,” Brendon told him.  William gave a weak chuckle.

 

“Barbell.” 

 

They walked in silence back to the apartment, Brendon feeling pretty good about himself despite the strange air Will had about him.  A lot of things were awful, but he felt like he could breathe okay, and that was nice.  He wasn’t bouncing out of his skin, and he wasn’t exhausted with his bones aching.  It was really nice to be in the middle. 

 

Something felt off when they got inside the building though.  Will kept chewing on his lip and looking over at Brendon when he thought Brendon wasn’t paying attention.  He followed Will up the stairs and hung back again while he unlocked the door.  He pushed off the wall and headed inside after him, planning on a nap and maybe a hot shower.  He had a lot of homework that he didn’t even want to think about doing. 

 

He also had a living room full of people staring at him when he walked in.  He frowned and closed the door quietly behind him.  “Um,” he said.

 

Jon was sitting on the couch staring at him, and Zack was standing there staring at him.  Spencer looked like he was in the middle of pacing, but he’d stopped and was staring with everyone else.  Will was staring at him too, and Sarah, for some reason, was sitting on the couch next to Jon.  She wasn’t staring at him.  She wasn’t even looking up. 

 

Brendon looked between all of them and dropped his backpack by the front door.  “Um…” he said again.  “What’s going on?” 

 

“Hey kiddo,” Zack said.  “Come sit down.  We need to talk.” 

 


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit two in one day??? yes.

“C’mon guys, we’re going to be late!” Spencer called from the front seat, blaring the horn and leaning out of the window.  “It’s a four and a half hour drive!”  The car jostled a bit, and Spencer looked back through the rearview mirror, then sighed.  “Will, get out of the trunk.”

“This is where I was meant to spend my life,” Will said, sprawling out in a bed of duffle bags and backpacks, only one arm and a dirty sneaker visible from where Spencer was.  “Fuck living in the woods.  I wanna sleep in the back of a van the rest of my life.”

 

“SUV,” Spencer corrected, then blared on the horn again.  “Come on!”

“Press that horn again, Spencer Smith, and I’ll kill you,” Zack said, appearing in the passenger side window before pulling the door open and settling in.  “C’mon boys.  Will, what are you doing?”

 

“I’m resting,” he replied.

 

“Alright then.” 

 

The car jostled again as Will pushed up out of the back, tumbling over the backseat and landing all askew, practically upside down.  He kicked himself around until he was upright, and Spencer rolled his eyes again, turning his attention to Brendon and Jon coming out of the apartment building.  

 

Brendon didn’t look very happy about this, and Jon had that look on his face that meant he was trying pretty hard not to be upset.  Whether he was pissed because they’d gotten in an argument, or just feeling guilty because it was obvious Brendon did  _ not _ want to do this, Spencer couldn’t be sure.  He felt a little guilty about it, too, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice here.  He knew how Brendon felt about this whole thing (God, the whole building probably knew, with the fit the kid threw the other day.  He was just starting to come down from a manic episode that had been raging through the apartment for almost a week.  Ever since the counselor Brendon was talking to suggested the diagnosis of ‘bipolar disorder,’ Spencer had been on the internet gathering all the information he could).  He didn’t want to be talking to a counselor in the first place, but he was starting to come around to the idea.  For whatever reason, he hated the idea of going on medication, which was the entire reason for this road trip in the first place.  

 

Brendon had told Spencer that he didn’t like being the reason for this, like he was inconveniencing everyone, even though Will and Jon were basically over the moon with the idea of this vacation, and Zack and Jenny had arranged for them to pick her up from the airport while they were there.  Spencer kept trying to remind him of all of that, but Brendon was a stubborn little shit and wasn’t willing to listen to any sort of reason.  Spencer was genuinely surprised that Jon hadn’t had to carry him out of the apartment building kicking and screaming.  

 

Jon and Brendon wrestled themselves into the backseat, pushing William’s sprawled limbs out of the way as they bundled themselves up. 

 

“Seat belts,” Zack reminded, and Spencer had to grin at Jon clicking Brendon’s seat belt into place while the younger sat there scowling with his arms crossed tightly across his chest.  

 

“It won’t be that bad, B,” Spencer told him, earning no response.  

 

“Grumpy pants,” Will said, wrapping an arm around Brendon’s neck and tugging him close, nuggying him until Brendon started whining and tugging away. 

 

“Shot gun controls the radio,” Zack said, playing with the dial and pulling up some random FM classics station.  It was tolerable.  Spencer had a secret appreciation for Van Halen.  “We’ll switch off whenever you get tired, okay pup?” 

 

Spencer hummed some sort of affirmative noise, not feeling much like talking with the strange mood settled in the car.  The road trip would be nice, he hoped.  A chance to get away, see the city.  He hadn’t been into Denver since, like, a ninth grade field trip.

 

At least he wouldn’t have to work for the next few days.  There was that to look forward to.

 

…

 

Spencer ended up driving the whole way, unwilling to slow down or give up the controls.  They hadn’t stopped for a bathroom break the whole trip either, so by the time they got to the hotel it was no wonder he looked dead on his feet.  

 

“I’m going to get Jenny,” Zack said, handing out key cards and pocketing his own.  “Your room has two full beds.  If you’re not cool with sharing we can request a cot at the front.  I expect everyone to be here and in one piece when we get back.” 

 

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Jon said, because Spencer was too tired to be paying attention, and Lord knows the younger two could use some looking after. 

 

Zack eyed him dubiously before nodding.  “Stay put,” he said, then turned and headed out of the building.  Jon watched him go before turning his attention to the boys meandering around the hotel lobby.  Spencer had collapsed into a decorative arm chair, exhausted after five straight hours of driving.  Will was feeding a dollar into a vending machine.  Brendon was… point of interest… not there.  Jon frowned and sniffed the air as subtly as he could with the man behind the front desk watching.  The security was understandable.  They probably didn’t look very trustworthy, especially now since the only actual adult of the group had left.  

 

He caught a scent somewhere to the left and followed it, wrinkling his nose up against the assault of chlorine and potpourri.  

 

It wasn’t hard to find Brendon. He was down the hall and to the left, staring morosely through a small glass window at the indoor pool.  Jon snuck up behind him and wrapped both arms around him.  Brendon whined quietly, a total puppy, but eventually relaxed and rocked his weight back to rest against Jon.  “Hey.”

 

“You wanna go swimming?” Jon asked him.  Brendon shook his head. 

 

“There’s a vending machine out front.  You want anything?”

 

Brendon growled very quietly and his shoulders stiffened in Jon’s embrace.  “You don’t have to be nice to me just ‘cause I’m crazy.” 

 

That kind of comment wasn’t much of a surprise at this point.  Jon hooked his chin over Brendon’s shoulder and squeezed him gently.  “C’mon, now.  I’m always nice to you.  It’s what I do,” Jon told him.  “God knows I’m hopelessly in love with you.”

 

That earned an emotionless “Ha,” out of Brendon and then the comment, “You’ve gotten me confused with Spencer again,” which Jon would have resented had anyone else said it.  But it was Brendon, so it was fine.  It figured that he would have unraveled that by now.  He was a lot smarter than people probably gave him credit for.  

 

“Nope, I mean you,” Jon said instead, because joking was the only good response he could fathom for that statement, and he was trying to trick a smile out of the kid anyways.  “I’ve fallen terribly for you, Mr. Urie.  Won’t you run away with me?”

 

“I think I already have,” Brendon said with a ghost of a grin playing on his lips.  It waned almost instantly.  “I don’t want to go tomorrow.”

 

Jon frowned, biting gently at Brendon’s shoulder. “It could help.”

 

“Ha,” Brendon repeated.  “Right.  They’ll give me a magic pill and I’ll be totally neurotypical.  Oh gee.”

 

“Where did you learn that word?” Jon asked with a slight grin.  Brendon shrugged. 

 

“Internet.”

 

At that moment, Spencer came wandering into the hall with them and reached past Jon to ruffle Brendon’s hair and mess it up.  “Where’s our room?” he asked, blinking sleepily.  Will trailed behind him, an open can of Coke in his hand and what looked like three other cans weighing down his hoodie pockets.  He was dragging a duffel bag behind him.  

 

“Two-forty,” Jon said.  He let Brendon out of the hug but tugged him along as they followed Spencer, listening to him bitch about having to climb stairs.  As soon as they found the room and pushed open the dingy hotel door, Spencer tossed his bag on the floor and collapsed face first onto the nearest bed.  

 

“Okay,” Jon said, setting his bag down on the other side of the bed that Spencer was occupying.  “Let’s go to the pool.  Give Spencer a chance to nap.”

 

Spencer growled weakly, and Will immediately started stripping and changing into his swim trunks.  

 

“I hope Zack and Jenny aren’t too loud tonight,” Brendon commented absently.  Spencer growled again and tugged a pillow tight over his head.  

  
  


…

 

It was too late to be having this conversation.  They were both exhausted- Zack after a five hour car ride up the mountains, and Jenny after a six hour plane ride across the country.  There had definitely been plans in his mind for this evening, and sitting up at two a.m. watching his girlfriend pace and cry had not been on the list.  He shouldn’t have pushed, honestly, but he never knew when to let things go like this.  Not when she had been so obviously upset the entire evening. 

 

“I was going to wait ‘til tomorrow to tell you that,” she said.  Zack’s thoughts had regressed, not knowing how to deal with the situation at hand.  God damn he was so not awake enough for this.

 

“You’re…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“But how…?”

 

“I don’t know.  Apparently when two people have sex it sometimes makes a baby,” Jenny snapped, but the bite was lost when a new wave of tears sprung to her eyes. 

 

Zack had to stop and take a deep breath, rub his hands over his face because  _ shit. _  This wasn’t his life.  This was all an absurd dream, and he was going to wake up in the morning a changed man and remember to wear a condom the next time.

 

“But you were on the pill,” he said weakly.  They’d been so careful.  How could they have…?

 

“Ninety-nine percent,” Jenny said with a sigh.  “More like seventy-five percent, I suppose.  Apparently they aren’t as effective for people with our anatomy.  I read a few papers on it.” 

 

Zack shook his head slowly and mulled it all over.  “How far along are you?” he asked.  

 

“Four months.”  She ran her hands over her stomach before sitting on the hotel bed next to him.  The sheets smelled too strongly of cheap detergent and the comforter, which held the scent of every guest the past few weeks, lay crumpled on the floor at the foot of the bed.  “I’ve known since February.”   He hadn’t even noticed.  Her baby bump was barely visible in the first place, and under the hooded sweatshirt she was wearing, you couldn’t see it even if you knew what you were looking for. 

 

When he’d finally gotten her to spill the news, he’d been more expecting her to break up with him than this.  God, when did he become such a teenager?  Worrying about breakups and knocking up his girlfriend.  

 

“Since February…” he repeated.  “Why didn’t you  _ tell  _ me?”

 

“Figured this was the kind of thing you tell someone in person,” she said, looking up and catching his eye.  “It seemed inappropriate for a Skype call, and….” She let out a shaky breath. “I was scared.  If I’d told you earlier and you hadn’t wanted to keep it, I’m not sure I could have told you no….” 

 

On one hand, Zack really would have liked to know sooner.  It was… unnerving to think that Jennifer could have been pregnant and had an abortion without him ever finding out any of this had happened.  That was his kid in there.  On the other hand, it was  _ her _ body, and he could understand her apprehension.  Even so, it wasn’t like her concern held any real substance.  He could never have asked her that in a million years. 

 

He didn’t know how to say any of that, so instead he took her hand in his and rested them both on his knee.  “Do you know the gender?” he asked. 

 

She nodded, and in a quiet voice, almost broken, she said, “It’s a girl.”

 

And this could have been the stupidest thing ever.  Zack didn’t know how they were going to do any of this, what this was going to mean for their future, or if Jenny even wanted the same things here that Zack wanted.  He might have been overstepping some huge lines, totally off base.  She might get freaked out and run for the hills.  Maybe she’d just meant to break the news to him, not start a family together, but Zack threw caution to the wind and asked, “So, what are we going to name our daughter?” and Jenny pressed her face to his shoulder and cried. 

  
  


…

  
  


Jon wasn’t sure why he was awake, but he’d woken with a start.  Slightly disoriented, he’d jolted up and searched the room, trying to place his surroundings.  Right.  Denver.  Mental hospital.  Hotel room.  He was sharing a bed with Spencer.  

 

He let out a reassured breath and flopped back down on the mattress.  To his left Brendon and Will were both sleeping soundly, tangled up together in a scene that Jon would have loved to capture in a picture, if only his camera wasn’t buried in his backpack and the room wasn’t pitch black around them.  He grinned and turned his head to the right, where he should have seen a Spencer shaped lump under the covers, but instead found the sheets pushed back and the bed empty.  He frowned and sat up again.  

 

Spencer’s phone was sitting plugged in on the nightstand.  His bag sat where he’d originally dropped it by the bathroom.  His hoodie was over the back of a chair.  The only thing missing was his shoes, and well, Spencer himself.  

 

Jon got up out of bed as quietly as he could and slipped his own shoes on.  He sniffed at the air and followed his nose out of the hotel room and down the hall.  He didn’t stop walking until he was downstairs and outside, where he saw a familiar silhouette crouched down on the sidewalk.

 

“Spence,” he said quietly, sitting on the sidewalk next to the puppy and resting his arms on his knees.  “Hey.”

 

“Brendon just fell asleep,” Spencer responded, apropos to nothing.  Jon nodded.

 

“You waited up for him?” 

 

“He told me it’s worse at night,” Spencer said.  “I’m not just going to let him stay up by himself.” 

 

Jon bumped his shoulder against Spencer’s and tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes.  It was cold out and he wished that he’d brought his jacket with him.  The hair on his bare arms was prickling up and not doing anything to keep him warm.  Spencer’s arm was cold against his own.  He must have been out here for longer than he let on. 

 

“This isn’t your fault, y’know,” he reminded. 

 

“I knew what he was doing the whole time.  I should have…” He made a quiet, flustered noise and Jon nudged him gently again.  “I should have done something.” 

 

“He’s going to be okay,” Jon said.  His cheek felt warm when he rested his head against Spencer’s shoulder, skin cold in the April weather through the too-thin material of his t-shirt. 

 

“He tried to  _ kill himself _ ,” Spencer said, his voice sounding too close to broken for Jon’s liking.  

 

“He’s going to be okay,” he repeated, because he didn’t know what else to say, and he honestly believed it.  “He’s talking to someone.  And he’s getting help.  That’s why we’re here.  Besides, he has us.”

 

“He had us before,” Spencer argued.  “And he didn’t tell us anything.” 

 

“Well…” Jon picked his head up and thought about it for a moment.  “He still has us.  But better now.  Like the new and improved version.”

 

Spencer snorted a laugh.  “You’re such a dork,” he said.  He turned his head and looked at Jon, eyes almost green under the shitty orange street light above their heads.  Jon didn’t know what had come over him.  Whether it was the ambiance or talking about their friend’s deteriorating mental health, but some part of Jon with awful timing and worse impulse control leaned forward and pressed his lips to Spencer’s.

 

It wasn’t their first kiss, but God knows none of them had gone well before.  Surprisingly, Spencer didn’t jerk away from him immediately or punch him in the face.  The kiss lasted for just a few seconds, and when Jon pulled away slowly, Spencer was staring at him with those giant, stupidly beautiful eyes of his. 

 

He just stared for a moment, and then turned his head away fast and shifted to put a few inches of space between them.  Jon didn’t say anything, just pressed his lips tight together and swallowed around the dryness in his throat.  God, he was such an idiot.  

 

It was silent for a second, not even the chirp of crickets to fill the static background since they hadn’t come out of hiding yet for the spring.  When Spencer decided to break the silence, his voice sounded a little choked, a little too high.  

 

“I can’t do this,” he said.  “That.  Whatever.” 

 

“I know,” Jon said.  

 

“I’m not-”

 

“I know,” he interrupted, closing his eyes and letting out a long breath because he couldn’t be mad at Spencer for his own stupidity. “I’m sorry.  I’m just tired.  I don’t know why I did that.”

 

“It’s just…”

 

“I get it,” Jon said.  He stood up and brushed off whatever dust might have gathered on his pants.  “Come on… it’s too cold to stay out here.  You need to get some rest.”

 

Spencer tilted his head and looked up at him with large puppy eyes, and Jon was struck with just how much Spencer had grown up in the past year.  He had the beginning of a beard decorating his jaw line, which was way more defined than it used to be.  Jon looked him over and this wasn’t the body of the little kid he’d picked up in the park nearly two years ago.  This was a man sitting there on the sidewalk staring up at him, face perfectly calm if a bit confused.  Not a trace of the childish panic that had been there the last time they’d kissed, angry and overflowing, shoving Jon out of the way and running scared.  

 

Even with all that, his eyes were still so young.  Not even nineteen yet and it showed, and wow.  Jon must have been stupidly tired if he was thinking about all of these things.  About time and growing up and the way Spencer’s arms looked under the sleeve of his t-shirt. 

 

“Okay,” Spencer agreed, standing.  “Are we…?”

 

“Bros,” Jon told him bumping his shoulder against Spencer’s as they walked back into the hotel.  The twenty-something clerk at the front desk had fallen asleep in her chair and didn’t notice them passing.  Spencer bumped back gently, and Jon grinned to himself, hoping that it wasn’t just exhaustion keeping Spencer from running away from him.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holla at kcracken for editing for me. they are the bomb dot com. if it weren't for them this would be a shitstorm of commas. 
> 
> yes, this is the real end of book three. book four is on it's way, and honestly, it's going to be EPIC. my favorite book yet. 
> 
> bonus: we might be getting some amazing fanart soon! I'll let you know.
> 
> one more shoutout to the lovely, ever amazing YourStalkerr. Light of my life. Apple of my eye. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Wolf!verse is basically our love child, and none of this nonsense would be here without them, so <3 love ya babe

**Author's Note:**

> send me comments, suggestions, or requests for oneshots. check out my tumblr (punks-n-rec). thanks for reading!! more soon :)


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